


As Through a Swirling Mist

by Jezunya



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Complete, Ghost Bilbo, Happy Ending, M/M, POV Bilbo Baggins, ghost story, halloween fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-08-02 16:24:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16308632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jezunya/pseuds/Jezunya
Summary: After taking that nasty blow to the head, Bilbo wakes to the quiet, grey landscape atop Raven Hill, made only quieter and greyer by the shifting shadows of his little magic ring – only the ring isn't on his finger anymore, and there's another Bilbo Baggins lying at his feet, unconscious in the freezing twilight, whom Bilbo's hands pass right through when he tries to retake control of his body.Incorporeal and unseen, Bilbo must find his friends in the aftermath of the Battle of Five Armies and, somehow, bring back help before the cold night – or the cold of the ring – consumes him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been planning this fic since last autumn, but couldn't get the time or spoons together to actually write it until now. The title is from Ch11 of FotR, when Frodo gets stabbed by the Witch King. 
> 
> Enjoy!

All is quiet when Bilbo wakes, quiet and cold and grey, nothing to be heard but the soft howling of the wind around the peaks and boulders and ancient, crumbling stonework that make up Raven Hill.

Raven Hill, that’s right… He’d been searching for Thorin, fighting his way up the cliffs to the watchtower, darting unseen between orcs and goblins with the aid of his little magic ring. He’d picked up some of the smaller rocks as he’d gone, lobbing them at unsuspecting foes and clinging close to the wall to avoid being bowled over himself, and then… His head throbs as he sits up, groaning and recalling the sight of a crude orcish sword as it had rushed towards his face, the pommel striking him in the temple and sending him careening backwards to land… here. In this little sheltered alcove, which, he realizes, must have saved him from being trampled, as much as his ring saved him from being finished off by one of the enemy forces who might have spotted him once he was unconscious and defenseless.

It’s growing awfully cold now, on top of the usual coldness of the shifting shadow world of his ring, snow flurries beginning to drift downwards from the bleak, blank sky above as the sun dips low over the smudge of the Misty Mountains in the distant west. The battle seems to have moved on, at least, though it’s taken his friends and allies along with it, he thinks with a sigh, climbing to his feet and poking his head out of his alcove. There’s no need for invisibility now, he reasons, eager as ever to escape the wearying, worrying effects of his ring once its necessity has passed, and he reaches for the gold band on his finger – only to find nothing but a black smudge, a dark stain encircling the appendage and beginning to spread towards his palm. It’s like his skin has been burned horribly, or perhaps more like it’s been frostbitten, considering how his hand aches with cold as he flexes his fingers…

But where has the ring gone? It can’t have just disappeared! He spins around, intent on searching the snowy ground around him for the missing treasure—

And finds himself staring down at another Bilbo Baggins, laid out on the cobblestones, a trickle of blood drying on the side of his face, eyes closed in sleep and apparently unaware of the snowflakes beginning to collect on his hair and lashes. And there, on this other Bilbo’s finger, is his ring.

“Oh dear,” Bilbo whimpers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's a post I made for this fic, if anyone feels like reblogging it :)](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/179088894559/new-fic-as-through-a-swirling-mist-after-taking)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who read, left kudos, and commented on ch1! <3

The first thing he does, of course, is lunge for the other Bilbo’s – for his own – hand, hoping to remove the ring, or perhaps to replace it on his own – really his own, not his _other_ own – finger. If he’s wearing it once more, then he can remove it once more, and everything should go back to normal.

Shouldn’t it?

His hands pass right through the other Bilbo, though, his fingers clutching at nothing. He scrabbles uselessly for several moments, dropping to his knees beside himself and trying to grasp the ring, his coat, his little sword Sting, all to no avail.

“Alright,” he tells himself after a minute, giving up for the moment and squeezing his eyes shut tight – but he’s still here, looking down at his own supine form, when he opens them once more, the nightmare as yet unended. “Alright, so…” So he can’t pick the ring up now, the ring or anything else, it would seem, in his current state. Which means…

Which means he’s some kind of… spirit?

“Oh dear,” he squeaks again, staring down at his body, as a horrible thought occurs to him.

Is he _dead?!_

No, no… His body’s chest continues to rise and fall with breath, slow and subtle but steady, even as his lips and fingers are beginning to look a bit tinged with blue.

“Alright,” Bilbo says again, sitting back on his haunches and taking a deep breath – the body in front of him does not mimic the movement, simply continuing to sleep. “Alright, I’m not dead – not yet, anyhow.” The snow collecting over him might change that before too long. And if he can’t remove the ring from his body’s hand—

“Now, hang on,” he murmurs with a frown, pushing back against the panic rising in his chest. He got his friends out of being spiders’ dinner, and then out of an elven prison, and then he managed to sneak past a dragon and find a lost dwarven artifact and prevent a war between people who by all accounts really should be allies. Even if it did cost him a great deal personally, in the end… But this… This isn’t so different from those other scrapes, is it? He just— just needs to stop and _think._

He stares down at himself for long, silent seconds as the wind continues to howl and shadows flicker and dance out of the corner of his eyes. Finally, he stands once more and moves around to his body’s feet. Perhaps he’s merely approaching this from the wrong angle. Why, of course a spirit can’t grasp something physical on its body! But if his body is still breathing and alive, then there’s no reason his spirit should be out of it. Something’s simply jarred them apart; between that nasty knock to the head and his little ring’s magic, something must have simply gone wrong. He only needs to put himself back together, and then he’ll be able to remove the ring as he always has, with his own, physical, hands.

Nodding in determination, Bilbo kneels once more before turning around and shuffling backwards until he’s sitting in – through – his own midsection. He lies back, stretching his legs out and attempting to arrange his limbs in just the same position as his body. Bilbo closes his eyes, releasing a long breath, letting himself settle back, and waits for something to feel different, to feel more solid perhaps.

A minute passes, then two, and finally Bilbo reasons that must be long enough. He opens his eyes once more to the shifting, washed-out shadows of the ring, but then that’s not surprising, as he’s still wearing it. He reaches for it without looking, and feels his fingers close over… nothing. Jerking upright, he looks down at his hands: the ones in front of him are still free of any gold rings and still stained with black, though if he’s not mistaken the stain has spread a little further down his finger to his palm than the last time he looked. And, twisting around, he finds his body still lying on the ground without him, unconscious as ever.

“Oh. Well. This… This is…” He swallows hard, unable to finish his sentence as he stares down at his own face, seeming backward and foreign somehow, a reverse of what he’s seen in the mirror all his life. This is very, very bad, he knows. If he can’t get back into his body before night falls, with winter coming on already, as far north as they are…

He’s breathing too fast, panic setting in again, yet he miraculously doesn’t feel faint – perhaps spirits can’t faint? Which means… Which means he’s still got options, he can still do _something_ to try to remedy this situation, he reminds himself. He just can’t remedy it on his own. He needs… He needs…

His thoughts seem to slow and stick, like honey left out in the cold, resistant to any forward motion… He needs… He needs _someone_ … Someone who can, can… can come and… take… take… take the ring…

His snarl in answer to that thought takes Bilbo quite by surprise. No one can touch his ring, his precious! his mind cries. It’s his, his alone, they’ll steal it, they’ll—

He shakes his head, remembering that moment with the spiders in Mirkwood, the violent rage that had overcome him when another creature had dared to so much as _touch_ his ring, how he had hacked and slashed and so utterly _destroyed_ the animal before him. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before or since, unlike anything he’s ever known…

And then another voice echoes in his memory, twisted and dark yet beloved still, painfully so: _I will not part with a single coin._

Bilbo scrambles to his feet, gasping for breath, stumbling out of the alcove into the open air, as if putting such a little distance between himself and the ring might break its hold over him – a hold so like the dragon, so like the cursed gold in Erebor, and that thrice-damned Arkenstone…

There’s magic here, for certain, he thinks, pacing back and forth before the alcove and wrapping his arms around himself – not that it does anything to ward off the cold radiating up from his hand where the ring ought to be. Some sort of magic beyond mere invisibility, something he’s underestimated or missed entirely up until now. Something he doesn’t understand and maybe hasn’t wanted to. He needs help, preferably from someone who knows about such things. He needs…

He looks up with a gasp, his course of action suddenly plain before him: “Gandalf!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Boost this chapter on tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/179117300159/as-through-a-swirling-mist-chapter-2-he-got-his)


	3. Chapter 3

He takes off running back the way he came, looking for the nearest staircase that will take him down towards the battlefield that has overtaken the desolate lands at the foot of the Mountain. That must be the best place to seek out Gandalf, he reasons, and the sooner he gets down off of Raven Hill, the sooner he can bring help back here—

Wherever ‘here’ is, of course.

Bilbo slows to a stop at the top of a set of stone steps that wind down the cliffs, frowning to himself. He’d run up here so quickly before, so desperate to find Thorin and the others, that he’s not at all certain where he actually ended up. And having to dodge around the many orcs and goblins and who knows what other foul things charging across the cliffs at him certainly hadn’t helped his sense of direction… He’s somewhere on Raven Hill, of course, not quite to the top but a good ways up. But he needs something more definite, something that will allow him to find his way back to precisely this spot. Going for help won’t do him any good if he can’t lead his rescuers back to his body, after all.

There aren’t any prominent landmarks that stand out to him as he spins around once more, everything in his view a wash of grey stone both above and below. Every boulder and outcropping looks exactly the same to his eyes, all snow-covered and desolate and quite indistinguishable.

He would be able to tell precisely where he was if these rocks were trees and flowers, he thinks bitterly. _‘Just up that way, past three elms, then there’s a maple on your left, and finally a lovely wild pear tree beyond that.’_ Instead, everything here is dead and cold and monotone…

 _A dwarf would be able to tell these rocks apart,_ is the next thought that occurs to him.

He shakes his head, turning back toward the stairs. He can’t expect any dwarves to come and show him around the place just now. Perhaps not all in the Company think ill of him – perhaps they wouldn’t refuse him aid, especially in this situation, kind-hearted and good as he knows them to be – but he can’t imagine he ranks terribly high in their thoughts just now, after what he did. It was not only Thorin’s ambition that he had betrayed, after all, but all of them, all that they had worked and struggled and bled to attain, and Bilbo had simply… given it away.

No, he’s on his own here, at least until he can find Gandalf and lead him back to the spot where his body lies. Which is, of course, a thing easier said than done, if he can’t even pick out anything remarkable to draw his eye.

He chews his lip, hesitating at the top of the stairs. Perhaps… Perhaps Gandalf or any of the others would know this area well enough to get back here, even without Bilbo knowing precisely where his body lies? But that’s… quite a risk to take, to simply walk away from himself now, with no way of knowing he’ll ever be able to return… But then, the longer he stands here dithering, the nearer night draws and the colder the air around Raven Hill grows. There must be _something_ he can do—!

His eyes trace over the cliffs and battlements once more, indecision paralyzing him, and then, completely by chance, he spies a handful of pebbles lying along the edge of a wall, just starting to be covered over with snow. Oh, of course! He darts forward to pick one up, exulting, for half a second, at this simple yet obvious plan: he’ll leave a trail of pebbles behind him to lead back to his body! It’s perfect—

And then his fingers pass right through the pebble, closing on nothing.

Bilbo stumbles, falls to his knees, and finally comes to rest against the cliff face – not that he can feel the rough stone against his shoulder and forehead. Right. Because, of course, he’s managed to forget already the debacle of attempting, and failing, to grasp the ring on his finger, used as he has been to an entire lifetime of being perfectly solid and able to pick up small objects without a moment’s thought. He stays there for several long seconds, frustrated and knowing full well that he’s wasting precious time, but as he stares down at his knees, it occurs to him: he’s sitting on top of the thin layer of snow that’s collected on the ground, almost floating atop it, not making so much as a dent in the delicate flakes.

“Blast it,” he mutters, and climbs to his feet once more. He looks back at the opening of the alcove where his body lies, staring hard for several seconds, willing himself to memorize that spot, to remember it no matter what, and then he turns and sprints down the stairs.

He tries to count the turns as he goes, the ground flying by beneath him, his feet leaving no marks on the snow behind him. He reaches the bottom of the hill in what feels like mere moments, compared to the arduous, violent climb up in the heat of battle, and finds the land below utterly still. The fighting has not just moved on, then, but ceased altogether.

Bilbo pauses, looking around. The wind howls down from Raven Hill at his back and across the Desolation, snow flurries swirling over what seem, at first, to be mounds of earth or rudimentary fortifications, but, as he draws nearer, he sees—

Bodies. Hundreds of them. They’re piled high, orc and troll and goblin alike, as if someone has gathered them up and cleared paths between them, like hay reaped in a field and waiting to be rolled into blackened, bloody bales. He passes between them, silent as the ghost he fears he’ll become, and in the distance ahead he can see long columns of smoke rising to the sky. The smell hits him a moment later, and he suddenly understands: they’re burning the dead of the enemy armies. The lack of dwarves or elves among the bodies he can see, at least, assures him that the allied forces protecting Erebor have come out victorious, a thing he had not even thought to doubt until it occurs to him now.

He tears his eyes away from the horror around him and picks up into a jog again, the peak of the Mountain ahead his lodestar. 

After a few minutes, he spies movement up ahead: a cart being pulled by one of the massive war rams Dáin had brought with his army, manned by several burly, armored dwarves whom Bilbo doesn’t recognize.

He’s well aware he may in fact be seen as something of a criminal by any of the dwarves of either Erebor or the Iron Hills, but… they might be able to tell him where Gandalf is. Deciding to risk it, he jogs closer.

“Hello!” Bilbo calls. None of the dwarves look up or pause in their work. Which, he can see now, involves tossing aside the corpses of goblins and orcs that lie strewn across the ground, building up just the sort of dead mounds that Bilbo had passed before. “Hello?” he tries again, slowing to a trot, then a walk.

“Aha! Here!” one of the dwarves cries out, and one of their compatriots comes rushing over to them, shoving bodies and gore aside until they uncover… another dwarf. A dwarf with half their face missing, Bilbo can see from here, and he comes to an abrupt halt, staring and aghast.

One of the dwarves swears low. “It’s Marik, see?” They point to something in the dead dwarf’s beard. “I thought I saw him go down, but—”

The others both shake their heads, muttering in grief and consternation, and the one sitting at the front of the cart behind the goat reaches for the canvas covering their load. Pulling it back reveals a flat bed where a half dozen more dwarves lie – all pale and bloodied and unmoving, yet all wearing the armor and sigils of Dáin’s army at least, not a one of them anyone Bilbo recognizes, thank the Valar. They add Marik’s body to their load, laying their shieldbrother out like the others, with arms folded and his one remaining eye closed, their movements unbearably gentle and respectful. The tarp is secured back into place, and finally Bilbo dares approach once more.

“Hello?” He creeps closer, wringing his hands in front of himself. Still, there is no response. “Can… Can you hear me?” he asks, and feels his voice break, fear and panic climbing up in his throat again. “Any of you?”

The dwarves take no notice of him, though the ram harnessed at the front of the cart gives an alarmed whicker, almost a growl, its great horned head swinging around as if looking for some unseen threat.

“I think that’s enough for now,” one of the dwarves on the ground says, climbing up onto the seat in the front. “Let’s get back to camp.”

“Wait,” Bilbo whispers.

“Yes, let’s,” the third dwarf agrees, and climbs up on the driver’s other side. “This place gives me the creeps…”

“Wait, please!” Still, they do not hear, and the driver gives a crack of the reins, urging the ram forward. The cart begins to pull away through the mud, and, in a burst of desperation, Bilbo runs forward and leaps onto its back, right on top of the tarp covering the dead dwarven soldiers.

The ram lets loose a squeal and breaks into a run, drawing startled cries from the dwarves – but they don’t try to slow the animal, seeming as relieved themselves to leave the silent dead behind as the camp comes into view ahead.

Bilbo clings to the back, glad at least to be moving closer to his goal, as well as that he has not simply passed through the cart to land on the ground once more, like his hands had done whenever he tried to pick anything up. He keeps his head down, lying flat among the dead whom he fears he will soon be joining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Boost this chapter on tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/179199058099/as-through-a-swirling-mist-chapter-3-perhaps-not)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to everyone who's read, left kudos, or commented. Yall brighten my day when I really need it <3

After several minutes of silence, punctuated only by the beat of the war ram’s hooves and the rattle of the cart over the uneven ground, they finally pull to a stop on the outer edges of a sprawling camp at the foot of the Mountain, dimly lit by torches and lanterns in the growing twilight. There are dozens and dozens of tents stretching away from them, half looking to be in the elven style and half of them dwarven, and all spattered with mud and snow and Bilbo doesn’t want to know what else.

He wriggles down from the back of the cart before the three dwarves can reach for the tarp again to begin unloading their fallen kin – for he can see, inside the nearest tent by which they’ve stopped, more Iron Hills dwarves going about the task of identifying the dead and preparing them either for burial or for transport back to their homeland – and he doesn’t much relish finding out if the tarp would fling him off through the air or if it would pass right through him just like everything he’s tried to pick up thus far. The dwarves still don’t seem able to see or hear him when he thanks them for the ride, and so Bilbo turns away and begins trudging into the camp, ignoring, as much as he can, how the goat bleats and rears in its harness when he walks past.

The dead give way to the wounded as Bilbo moves further into the camp, his feet making no sounds and leaving no trail in the cold, muddy lanes between the tents, but even so the various soldiers and Lakemen shy away from him whenever he comes near. The humans all hug themselves and rub their arms as they move away, the dwarves scowl and mutter to themselves, while the elves pause, looking around and frowning thoughtfully, almost as if they might be able to sense his presence, though even they still cannot seem to see or hear him, no matter how he shouts.

The camp is a mixture of the three allied armies, with elves at one end and dwarves at another, and the humans of Laketown taking up some small amount of space between them. They aren’t so totally segregated as one might think on first glance, though, he finds: elven healers can be seen in nearly every tent Bilbo peers into, aiding the wounded not only among their own ranks but also among the humans, and even, in a few cases, the dwarves, though Dáin Ironfoot’s army of course brought along their own healers as well. Still, for all the distrustful glances on the dwarves’ side and sneers on the elves’, they all seem to be working remarkably well together to gather blankets and food and save as many lives between them as possible.

A long day spent fighting orcs together will have that effect, he supposes.

Bilbo pauses at a major crossroads near the center of the camp, looking around as he considers where he ought to go next to look for Gandalf, as he’s still seen no sign nor heard any word of the wizard, and it obviously does no good to ask anyone, try as he might. In one direction are Thranduil’s tents, and in the other, Dáin’s. Gandalf had sided with Bard and Thranduil during that awful standoff at the gates, but then they had all banded together once word of the approaching orcish army had reached them… The last time Bilbo had seen the wizard was in Dale, just before he’d heard about Thorin’s reckless charge up Raven Hill and realized the trap he was surely walking into… Gandalf had been just as worried about their friends then as Bilbo had been, any sense of choosing sides against the dwarves – against Thorin – blotted away in the heat of battle. So he could really be anywhere now…

As he stands there dithering, looking first in one direction and then the other, Bilbo slowly becomes aware of the feeling of eyes on him. It’s the strangest sensation, especially after beginning to grow used to the way everyone simply looks right through him, the way the crowds break around him even now, as if no one wants to come near the spot where he stands, though they don’t know why. To be honest, Bilbo had been rather relieved at that; no more does he need to worry about being trampled or crushed when surrounded by so many Big Folk, invisible or not – and neither does he have to worry that they, too, just like his own body, would pass right through him.

But now there are most definitely eyes on him, and he turns around once more, paying closer attention to the tents in his immediate vicinity rather than trying to decide which end of the camp to try first. Could it be Gandalf has found him instead? Why, that would be most convenient! But— ah, no…

It is not Gandalf, though the human man staring out at him is certainly grey and worn and grizzled enough to pass for a wizard. He is lying on a cot inside a tent whose flap has been left partially ajar, and he is staring – gaping, really – directly at Bilbo.

“Hello?” Bilbo calls hesitantly, and takes a few steps towards the man’s tent. He can see now that there are bandages wrapped around the man’s head and covering much of his torso, bandages that are piteously inadequate, considering the bloom of red across his midsection. “Can— Can you hear me?”

The human’s eyes widen and he seems to choke for breath, raising one trembling hand a few inches off his cot to point at Bilbo. Someone else inside the tent steps up to his side and murmurs, “Hush now. Save your strength…” as they press his hand back to the cot.

The wounded man jerks his gaze up to them, then back to Bilbo as the hobbit continues to inch closer. Even if this person isn’t Gandalf, perhaps they can at least pass a message on for him, or tell him where to find the old grey wanderer. He watches as the man’s mouth works a few times, though no words come forth, and then he flops back, gives a low gurgle, and his eyes roll back in his head, and it does not look, from where Bilbo stops, stock still, as yet a few paces away from the tent, as if his chest rises with breath any longer.

“Oh— Oh, no…” the second person in the tent says, half wail and half sigh.

Bilbo spins away, stumbling in the mud, clutching at his own chest as his lungs feel tight, his breath coming too fast – a purely emotional reaction, he knows, for even with all the running he did coming down from Raven Hill and then across the battlefield, he was never short of breath then. But he cannot shake the sight of that man’s eyes going white, or the sounds of his last, gasping breath, echoing so many deaths in the battle today, so many deaths in another winter of Bilbo’s youth, when violence and hunger and sickness stole people away in equal numbers…

He is squatted in the mud near the wall of a tent, where no one will chance to run into – or through – him, hands digging into his hair as he tries to calm the shaking that has overtaken him, tries to catch his entirely unnecessary breath. He doesn’t even know in which direction he’d turned or where he’s ended up, only knowing that he had to get away from that man and the vision of the light leaving his eyes forever, dredging up so many terrible memories and so many fears now, fears that he will find his friends in a similar state, gurgling out their death rattles just as he comes upon them, or perhaps already still and gone like the dwarf Marik, like the many dwarves pulled out of the piles of dead out there on the field…

And that’s when he hears them.

Two dwarves come walking up the lane, several paces out from where Bilbo is crouched, both carrying overflowing baskets of what appear to be soiled bandages and linens, no doubt taking them to be cleaned and boiled anew. He doesn’t know either of them, and their Iron Hills accents are thick, but their words immediately catch his attention as they walk past, talking between themselves.

“I’m jes’ saying, they came all this way, fought a bloody dragon and all, just for the King to—”

“Ach, he’s not dead yet, Sternur!”

“ _Yet_ ,” the first dwarf, Sternur, replies. “It’s a sad day for the Line of Durin, is all. King Under the Mountain for a few miserable days, and now this. To think this was the homecoming our grandparents always dreamed of…”

“Talk like that certainly isn’t helping any!” the second dwarf snarls. “You’ll bring bad luck! Come on, hurry up, and stop your whinging!”

The dwarves pick up their pace, reshouldering their burdens and hurrying off down the lane, their continued bickering fading away as they go, and all Bilbo can do is sit there, staring out at the dirty ground, distantly aware that he hasn’t breathed at all in several minutes.

Thorin is alive.

He hadn’t— hadn’t dared even think the question to himself, hadn’t dared to so much as _wonder—_ Because then he would have had to consider all the things that could have gone wrong, all the dangers facing them, not least being Azog’s trap atop Raven Hill that Bilbo hadn’t even gotten the chance to warn them about.

Because he knew what the answer would likely be. And he simply couldn’t live in a world where that was true.

But… But Thorin is alive.

His breath comes rushing back in now, shaky and quick, the sort of breath that would normally indicate he’s on the brink of fainting, but he doesn’t, he still doesn’t, because— because—

Because Thorin is alive, even if only barely, somewhere in this camp, and Bilbo cannot waste a single moment. He springs to his feet, all thoughts of the wizard fleeing his head in an instant as he takes off running towards the bank of dwarven tents at the far end of the camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Boost this chapter on tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/179304021114/as-through-a-swirling-mist-chapter-4-but-now)


	5. Chapter 5

Bilbo dodges around dwarven soldiers and laborers – who all shudder away from him in turn and look about with hooded, suspicious eyes – his gaze flying from tent to tent, looking for any sign that might indicate a wounded dwarven king lies within. They’re all the same, though, all perfectly regimented and squared off, in true dwarven fashion, and they’ve got guards standing at the doorways of any number of different tents: some hold nothing more than crates of food and barrels of ale within, while another has boxes of that foul-smelling black powder that Balin had put into jars to use against Smaug… He pauses before a third tent, hearing Dáin Ironfoot’s loud brogue streaming out from within, but a peek through the doorway shows the Iron Hills ruler deep in discussion with several other dwarves Bilbo doesn’t recognize – his generals or advisors, no doubt, but not an heir of Durin or a member of the Company in sight. 

He moves on a touch more slowly after that. If Dáin is not with his cousin, then… then… Bilbo doesn’t know what that means, truthfully. That Dáin is no healer himself, perhaps, and simply wouldn’t want to be in the way of the lifesaving work that must come after a battle. Yes, that’s entirely possible. Likely, even. If perhaps also rather optimistic… Why, it’s not as if Dáin and his followers seemingly moving on to other matters is  _ necessarily  _ any indication that Thorin is— is— 

He stops in the middle of the road, staring around at blank, identical tent fronts, his throat tight and feeling like he very much  _ ought _ to be weeping by now, yet no tears come to his eyes. He cannot even feign that response, it would seem, unlike his spirit’s mimicry of breath. 

Perhaps Thorin is not even here… Perhaps they couldn’t move him from where he’d fallen in battle, his state too weak and delicate, too hopeless… 

Bilbo squeezes his eyes shut against such thoughts, wringing his hands together in front of him as the place where his magic ring used to be still burns with cold, making his entire forearm ache. Tears would bring a certain sort of release in this moment, an outlet for the sinking despair clawing its way up his middle to his heart, his throat— 

“…the young ones will live, at least,” a smooth, almost sultry voice says from up ahead, completely incongruent with the rough clanging of the dwarves, and Bilbo opens his eyes to find none other than the elf king of Mirkwood emerging from a tent that, save for its two armored guards, is as nondescript as all its fellows. 

“Yes,” a gravelly old voice answers him, and a moment later Gandalf the Grey follows Thranduil out, frowning deeply and leaning heavily on his staff. “That is some consolation, though I feel it is still a rather sorry end to this tale.”

“Gandalf!” Bilbo cries, and takes a few quick steps towards them – but neither wizard nor elf seem to hear him, and he comes to a faltering stop once more.

The elvenking looks back at Gandalf with a raised eyebrow. “Indeed? The dragon is dispatched, and a possible foothold for the Enemy here in the North prevented. Or are you now beginning to feel the loss of these mortals?” he asks with a sneer. 

Bilbo inches closer to them. “Gandalf? Oh, please, please, hear me!”

Gandalf scowls at Thranduil. “It is not only the great deeds of the Eldar that define the course of history,” he snaps, but Thranduil merely shrugs off his words and turns to continue down the dirt lane, back towards his own people’s segment of the camp. “But even so,” the wizard sighs, falling into step with the elf after a moment, “you are right: if they serve to weaken our Enemy at all, then the lives lost here today – and in Laketown – will not have been in vain.”

Thranduil nods thoughtfully, opening his mouth just as the two of them sweep past Bilbo. “Even—” 

“Do you sense that?” Gandalf cuts him off, stopping abruptly and turning to look around, his blue eyes scanning over the surrounding tents, though they never once drop low enough to land on Bilbo. “I feel as though the chill of death has stolen over me…”

“Here!” Bilbo yells, and decides he is not above leaping in the air and waving his arms about. Oh, if Gandalf can sense him, then maybe— maybe if he just tries a little harder— “I’m here! I’m right here!”

The elvenking sniffs, straightening the sleeves of his robes and walking on. “Death is all around us in this place, Mithrandir,” he says dismissively, and then adds with a glance back towards the tent from which they’ve just emerged, “Even now, Thorin Oakenshield has begun to reek of it.” 

Bilbo stumbles on his next jump, his heart instead leaping up into his throat.  _ Thorin!  _ In front of him, Gandalf is still frowning, still looking around and still apparently unaware of Bilbo’s desperation. Bilbo stares up at him for one last moment – but if the wizard cannot hear him any better than anyone else can, there is really no use standing about here, yelling futilely. Without losing another second, Bilbo turns and darts inside through the narrow gap at the front of Thorin's tent.

He pauses just past the doorway, taking in the sight before him: the tent is only dimly illuminated by several smoldering braziers – though, he realizes slowly, he cannot feel any of the warmth they are surely there to provide. Up above, unlit lanterns hang from the tent’s support beams, snuffed out to allow the patient to sleep, it would seem, now that no healers, elven or wizard or otherwise, hover at his bedside. 

Because there, asleep on a cot in the center of the tent, lies Thorin Oakenshield. 

“Do you think it will be enough?” a soft, lilting voice asks, and Bilbo starts, thinking, for one moment, that they are addressing him. A frantic look around reveals Balin seated in a far corner, half in shadow, his eyes on his king’s still form, as transfixed as Bilbo had been a moment before. 

Beyond him, another dwarf moves with his back to the room, organizing supplies of herbs and bandages on a low table, and Bilbo instantly recognizes Óin’s brash, loud growl as he answers. “Their magic’s done all it can for him. Now it’s up to dwarven mettle to set things right.”

Balin snorts, giving a small, watery smile. “Yours or his?” he asks, but Óin merely glances at him and says nothing.

“Oh, Balin…” Bilbo murmurs, but does not allow himself to take even a single step towards his friends so as not to disturb them with his chilling, ghostly presence. He has been so caught up in his own fears along the way here, he hasn’t even stopped to consider how very much everyone else stands to lose as well: their cousin, their friend, their beloved leader, in whom their faith never once faltered, even in the darkest moments, even when Bilbo was willing to throw it all away, to betray the dwarf he— 

Lost in his mournful thoughts as he is, Bilbo almost doesn’t hear when someone comes up behind him, but as it is he has just enough time to scuttle away from the doorway – into the opposite corner of the tent, not wanting to spook Óin and Balin as he had done to so many out on the street – and then Dwalin comes striding in. The big warrior has a bandage around one arm, and another covering a small, bleeding cut across his forehead, but he appears otherwise whole. 

So that’s three of his friends out of danger, at least. Five, if he assumes it was Fíli and Kíli that Thranduil had spoken of before. And Gandalf too, though he never really worried that anything too terrible could befall the wizard. So six. Six out of fourteen. Not even half. Half of his dear friends are still unaccounted for, and the one who quite possible means more to him than all the world…

“Any news?” Balin whispers, beckoning his brother over. Dwalin crosses the room to press his forehead against Balin’s, so much more softly and gently than that first reunion Bilbo had witnessed back in the Shire, so much less joyful or hopeful than that time. 

Straightening once more, the old warrior shakes his head, bald skin gleaming with sweat and grime, and looking as tired and miserable as Bilbo has ever seen him. “Nothing. The search parties have seen neither hide nor hair of the little burg—” 

“Hush!” Balin cuts him off, sharply enough that Óin turns around from his work table to glare at the two of them, before casting a pointed glance towards Thorin on his cot. “You’ll wake him again with talk like that,” Balin goes on in a whisper once more. “It’s only exhaustion that’s stopped him asking for… him.” He trails off, and they all three stand in somber silence for several long seconds, while, from his corner, Bilbo can only gape at them. 

He rather feels like crying again, though still no tears will come to his ghostly eyes. They’ve… They’ve been searching for him. Oh, but of course they have! How terribly disloyal he’s been, how quick he was to think they would not care for him any longer, after all they’ve been through, his dear, dear friends! He should never have doubted them!

And Thorin… Thorin has been asking for him. 

Balin and Dwalin go on conversing quietly, but Bilbo can hardly hear them, their voices drifting away as in a fog as his focus is once more captured entirely by Thorin Oakenshield. It has always been thus, of course, he thinks as he carefully approaches the cot. From the moment Thorin stepped through the door of Bag End, he has always been larger than life, like something sprung from the pages of a fairy story, a king more tragic and heroic than Bilbo could have ever dreamed up himself, so determined and noble and self-sacrificing and handsome and… 

There’s a chair pulled up near the cot, perhaps where Gandalf or the elvenking had rested while they worked to save Thorin’s life, but vacant now. Bilbo rests a hand against it, wondering for a moment if he’d simply pass right through it were he to try sitting there – and then once more notices the black smudge spreading along his palm. It’s reached past his wrist now, the furthest tip of the inky darkness almost halfway to his elbow. His palm is completely black, and several of his fingers are beginning to go too, and everywhere the smudge covers is cold and aching. What’ll happen when it reaches his heart? he wonders. Or perhaps his head? Will it cover him entirely? 

Or will he freeze to death up on Raven Hill long before that happens?

He closes his fist on the blackness overtaking his skin, and pulls his sleeve back up over his forearm for good measure. Gandalf can’t hear him, and the elves can’t hear him, and none of his friends can hear him… Even with their search parties apparently looking for him among the dead and wounded, he hadn’t seen anyone up on Raven Hill. And even if they do search there, they won’t find him, invisible as he is. He presses his hand against the chair, willing it to move, to allow him any indication to the greater world that he’s here, and for a brief second there is some little resistance – but then his fingers pass through the wood, and he yanks his hand back, cradling it against his chest. 

He turns away, facing Thorin once more, taking in that perfect, regal brow, twisted in pain though it is now, and one side of his face wrapped in bandages where a cut seems to have bisected his eyebrow. And Bilbo can see more bandages, all but covering the dwarf’s chest, peeking up beyond the blankets and furs that cover him, while, at the end of the bed, some box or similar structure holds those blankets up off his feet. 

Perhaps he’ll wear an iron leg like his cousin after this, Bilbo thinks, and feels a sob beginning to claw its way up through his chest. 

“I suppose Gandalf was right,” he says to himself as he wraps his arms around his midsection, “this is a rather sorry end to our tale, isn’t it?” Of course, another conversation echoes in his memory, one for which he’d actually been a participant rather than a mere eavesdropper:  _ No… and if you do, you will not be the same…  _

Truer words were never spoken in all the history of Middle Earth, he decides. 

Thorin sleeps on, though his dark brows draw further together and his head lolls slowly to the side on his pillow. 

“I don’t suppose you’d feel inclined to wake up?” Bilbo asks then, feeling awfully weepy and even more awful for how his eyes remain completely dry. “I’d like to see your eyes, I think, just one last time… They are such beautiful eyes, you know. Did I ever tell you that? No, I don’t suppose I ever did, which is such a shame, a crime, really. I ought to have told you how very beautiful I found you every day since we met. Beautiful and brave and kind and—” 

He can’t go on, a sob overtaking him despite his lack of tears, and he buries his face in his hands, his whole form shuddering fit to shake him right off his feet. 

“You… You came…” a new voice says, startling him, thin and weak and hoarse though it is, and Bilbo jerks his head back up to find Thorin smiling up at him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quite a few of you called this moment ahead of time, I know. Where else could the angst have led, really? ;)
> 
> [Boost this chapter on tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/179440228224/as-through-a-swirling-mist-chapter-5-so-thats)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sincerely trying to get this done by Halloween, but I, like our favorite lovebirds, seem to be running out of time...

“You… You came…” Thorin whispers, and Bilbo can only stare for a moment, frozen in shock. Then he glances up across the tent, because even if they cannot hear _him_ , the other dwarves can surely hear that Thorin is awake and speaking to someone – but Balin and Dwalin seem to have slipped out at some point in the past few minutes, called away on other duties while Bilbo was distracted, no doubt. Óin still works at the table across the room, grinding herbs for medicine, his back to them and his partial deafness meaning he cannot hear Thorin’s soft murmurings from where he stands.

“Bilbo…” Thorin speaks again, drawing Bilbo’s gaze back down to him, and oh, how sweet it is to hear his name on Thorin’s lips again! _Bilbo_ , not Master Baggins, or burglar, or… or traitor, Shire-rat… “Can you ever forgive me?” he asks, and then coughs a little. At this, Óin does turn around, but he likely sees only his patient, his face turned away as he lies still in his cot, and so the healer returns to his work once more.

“For… Forgive you?” Bilbo echoes, dropping his eyes to Thorin’s face once more. He is so very pale, pale and weak and looking up at Bilbo with those earnest blue eyes. “Yes, of course!”

Thorin closes his eyes again and lets out a sigh, and for a moment Bilbo is gripped with terror, remembering the man he had seen in another part of the camp, the one who had stared and pointed and then gurgled out his last breath, the one who had died right in front of Bilbo— But, no, it is only a sigh, only a sound of relief from Thorin now, and he opens his eyes again. “I wish to part from you in friendship,” he rasps.

“Thorin—”

“I would take back my words, and my deeds, at the gate. You did what only a true friend would do.”

Bilbo shakes his head. “No. No, Thorin… Thorin, listen, there’s no time—”

“I am so sorry that I have led you into such peril,” Thorin goes on doggedly, as if he too feels the seconds ticking away, the sand dribbling out of their respective hour-glasses as death closes in. One large, battered hand comes up off the cot a little ways, feebly reaching for Bilbo and apparently not at all put off by the ghostly aura that Gandalf and so many others have sensed about him.

There’s too much to process all at once, too many courses of action to consider: one part of him wants to reply back to that ridiculous statement, to assure Thorin that Bilbo has been honored to be by his side through all the trouble they’ve seen, that he wouldn’t have it any other way, while another part – the most practical part, he supposes – urges him to tell Thorin of his predicament above all else, that if Thorin can get a message through to anyone, Óin, Balin, Gandalf, _anyone_ , then there still might be time to save himself… But another part wants to rush into his own apologies, to beg for forgiveness in turn and make his goodbyes, because if Thorin can see and hear him then the dwarf can’t have much time left, and then Bilbo won’t be able to hold out much longer either, with no one to hear him and no one to come find his body out in the cold…

And yet another part of him can’t help whispering that it’s for the best anyway, because he can’t imagine going on in a world that doesn’t have Thorin Oakenshield in it.

He’s saved from deciding when another voice rings out in the tent. “Who’re you talking to, lad?” Óin asks, his voice habitually raised despite his gentle tone, wiping his hands of the poultice he was making as he crosses to Thorin’s bedside.

Thorin frowns and turns his head on his pillow to regard Óin for a moment. “I’m talking to Bilbo, of course,” he replies.

Óin’s mouth pinches up at that, and he at last fishes his ear trumpet out of his belt. “I know you didn’t say Bilbo just now,” he says, and presses the back of his free hand to Thorin’s forehead. “That elf magic was supposed to have staved off any fever…”

“What are you talking about?” Thorin demands, turning his head away from Óin’s hand. “He’s standing right here!”

“He can’t see me, Thorin,” Bilbo rushes to explain, “or hear me. Something’s… Something’s gone terribly wrong, you see, with— with—” But the words stick in his throat, no matter how much he knows he must tell them about his ring.

At the same time, Óin is shaking his head. “There’s no one there, laddie,” he tells Thorin.

Thorin stares at the healer, then looks back and forth between him and Bilbo. “But— But he’s right—” And he lifts one hand again, more confident than before, frustration and alarm seeming to have given him a little strength, and reaches for Bilbo.

Bilbo braces for the moment when Thorin’s hand will pass right through him, when his eyes will go wide with shock and horror, when he’ll stare and point just as that man who’d seen him before had done, when they’ll be abruptly out of time—  

Thorin’s fingers close thick and firm around Bilbo’s palm, his grip encouraging Bilbo to curl his fingers into Thorin’s hand in turn, and for the first time since he awoke, he feels warmth flooding through him, warmth and life and power flowing up from where they are connected.

And then, in the next instant, Thorin starts screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *points to the tags* Don't kill me!
> 
> [Boost this chapter on tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/179473267239/as-through-a-swirling-mist-chapter-6-thorin)


	7. Chapter 7

There’s quite a lot of yelling all of a sudden, yelling and running feet, but the heat flowing up through Bilbo’s hand is intoxicating, addictive, and he can’t move, can’t let go—

Something hard strikes his wrist, knocking his hand out of Thorin’s, and Bilbo stumbles backward, coming back to himself, beginning to look around at the chaos in the tent – only for the hard wooden staff to strike out at him again, catching him in the shoulder and sending him crashing first into the chair and then to the floor.

“How is he?” he hears Balin’s voice demanding amidst the cacophony, and Óin growling, “Wake up, lad! Wake up!”

“Where is it?! Where’s the threat?!” comes Dwalin’s yell, and then another – Bofur, he realizes – excitedly answering, “Gandalf got it! Gandalf took it out!”

“The evil still remains,” Gandalf replies, and Bilbo finally looks up, focusing on the wizard, who stands glowering into the corner where Bilbo fell, his staff in his hands. Beyond him, Balin and Dwalin have come rushing back into the tent, along with the two Iron Hills guards and several more members of the Company whom Bilbo had not seen before now: Bofur, Bifur, Nori, and possibly more dwarves beyond the tent, if the calls from outside inquiring about what’s going on are any indication…

Bilbo begins climbing to his feet, using the upset chair next to him for leverage. “Gandalf…”

The wizard’s eyes narrow and he grasps his staff more firmly, though still his gaze does not focus on Bilbo, nor does he seem to react to Bilbo speaking his name.

“Come on, lad, we didn’t work on you for all these hours just to lose you now,” Óin goes on, drawing Bilbo’s gaze back to the cot. He can only stare, aghast, as Thorin lies there, pale and unresponsive, his arm still flung out to the side where he had grasped Bilbo’s hand, while Óin bends over him, pulling the king’s eyelids back and pressing on his chest above his bandages, before producing a small, flat piece of metal from a pocket and holding it close above Thorin’s mouth and nose. The metal fogs with breath after a moment, and both Óin and Bilbo sag with relief.

“What was that, Gandalf?” Balin asks from where he hovers at Óin’s side. “What happened?”

“It was me…” Bilbo whispers, still staring down at Thorin’s ashen face in horror. “I did that…”

“I am not entirely sure,” Gandalf says after a long moment, and he is frowning when Bilbo glances up at him, the wizard’s blue eyes still darting around Bilbo’s corner of the tent. “I saw a dark figure when I entered the tent… It seems a restless spirit may have wandered in from the battlefield to feast on the dying.”

Several of the dwarves suck in sharp breaths and they all exchange disturbed glances, while Bilbo cries, “No, no! I didn’t mean to! I would never—” But he cuts himself off. He would never hurt Thorin? But he just has, and not for the first time…

On the cot, Thorin coughs quietly, turning his head on his pillow and knitting his brows. “Bilbo…” he mumbles.

“I’m here,” Bilbo whispers back, even though he rather wishes he wasn’t. Around them, most of the dwarves only look saddened by Thorin’s utterance, but Óin perks up.

“Bilbo!” he exclaims, looking up, and for a moment Bilbo actually thinks that perhaps another person can see him – but no, Óin is looking across at Gandalf. “He said he was talking to the hobbit! That he was standing right here by his bedside! And then he reached out and just—” He waves his hand, indicating the screaming, the writhing in pain, and finally Thorin’s unconsciousness.

Gandalf sets the end of his staff back on the ground, leaning on it like the walking stick most people take it for. His frown has only deepened. “The figure I saw was too small to be man or elf,” the wizard murmurs thoughtfully, “or, I suppose, even a dwarf.”

Another quiet gasp goes around the room, until, back by the door, Bofur asks, with tears in his eyes, “So… So he’s gone?”

“No!” Bilbo cries in return, even though he knows they will not hear. “Not yet, anyway!”

Thorin groans, turning his head slowly from side to side once more. “Yelling…”

“No one’s yelling, lad,” Óin tries to comfort him, patting him gently on the shoulder, but then looks around the tent with a pointed expression. “He’s very weak, and’ll need rest now more than ever.”

The two armored dwarves from the Iron Hills give quick, short bows before shuffling back outside to their posts, deferring to Óin’s authority, but no one else moves. “I’m not going anywhere,” Dwalin growls, and Bilbo notices for the first time that the big dwarf has his axes in his hands, ready to strike down anyone who might pose a threat to Thorin without a moment’s hesitation.

“This is not an enemy you can fight with steel and strength, Master Dwarf,” Gandalf snaps, even as he steps closer to the cot and leans down to place the tips of his fingers against Thorin’s forehead and murmur a few quiet words of magic – just as he had done when they’d landed atop the Carrock all those months ago, when they were all still so hopeful despite the troubles they’d already seen.

Thorin does not, unlike that time, spring to his feet, but his expression does clear somewhat and his breaths seem to come a little easier. Gandalf straightens once more, leaning on his staff with both hands and looking utterly exhausted. “That is all I can do for him, for now,” he sighs. “I may have been able to undo the damage the spirit has done, at least.” And then, he turns to regard Bilbo’s corner again.

“Bilbo Baggins,” the wizard growls, seeming to grow and darken and take up the whole tent as he glares somewhere slightly to the left of Bilbo, “if that is you and not some impostor taking your shape – be gone! If you have passed into the realm of the dead, you have no business lingering here any longer!”

It feels a bit like a stiff wind has rushed up upon him, and for a moment Bilbo rather hopes the wizard’s magic _will_ banish his spirit away and he’ll wake up back in his body and able to walk down into camp under his own power, even if he is a bit cold and stiff… But alas, he is still here when the magical wind dies down again, and apparently still as invisible as ever, considering how Gandalf frowns and looks around.

“Is that it?” Nori asks after a moment of silence. “He’s gone? And we just… just need to find his body wherever it lies.”

“Yes, actually!” Bilbo snaps. “Only not in the way you mean it!” He’s angry suddenly, angry at this whole blasted situation, angry at himself for falling into it, and for nearly killing the one person who could actually hear him, who might have been able to help, the person he lo—

“The dark presence I sensed before is still here,” Gandalf says, shaking his head in answer to Nori’s question.

“Do you think…” Balin speaks up then, sounding rather pained. “Do you think he could be here for… revenge?”

“No!” Bilbo insists, but more troubled glances pass between his dwarves, and Nori mutters none too quietly, “Couldn’t really blame him, the way Thorin threw him out…”

Gandalf frowns to himself. “I would not have thought so… The last time I saw Master Baggins he was going off to find Thorin, to warn him about the second approaching army. But perhaps it is so… There is a very dark presence lingering here, and a great anger…”

“You would be angry too if no one could see or hear you and you were slowly freezing to death!” Bilbo yells, and, without thinking, he lashes out and kicks the chair that is still lying on its side next to him.

The chair skids several inches across the floor.

The dwarves all collectively take a large, shocked step backward, with the exceptions of Óin and Dwalin, who both lurch forward as if to put themselves between Thorin and this unseen attacker. For his part, Gandalf holds his ground, though his eyes do widen a little.

“Bilbo…” Thorin calls again, pulling Bilbo away from his own gaping – he’s only ever gone right through the objects he’s tried to move before! The king’s voice is a little stronger now, and a moment later his eyes slit open, blinking slowly up at the ceiling before focusing on Óin. “What happened?” he croaks, and swallows with some difficulty. “Where is…?” He looks around instead of finishing his question, sighing when his gaze lands on Bilbo once more. “You’re still here…”

“What do you see, Thorin?” Gandalf demands. “Can you see Bilbo Baggins in this tent?”

Thorin frowns up at the wizard. “Were you struck blind in the battle, Tharkûn?” he drawls, his weakness and fatigue making him even more caustic towards the wizard than usual. “Bilbo is standing right here.”

“They can’t see me, Thorin,” Bilbo tries again, though he makes sure to stay back by the wall of the tent, well out of Thorin’s reach this time.

“No, he’s not,” Balin tells him gently, at almost the same moment. “Gandalf was just explaining, if Bilbo is here at all, it is only his spirit, and he needs to move on to… wherever it is hobbits go when they die…”

“I’m not dead!” Bilbo hisses. Thorin stares at Balin, before glancing at Bilbo and then back again. “Thorin, I’m not dead! Please, they can’t hear me, so you must tell them—”

“What is he saying to you, Thorin?” Gandalf asks then, and Thorin’s eyes meet Bilbo’s once more.

“Please, Thorin, we don’t have much time – my body is up on Raven Hill, and it’s growing colder by the minute—”

Thorin starts, his eyes widening and his face, if possible, going even paler. “Your body?!”

“Oh,” Balin exclaims softly, as if suddenly understanding. “He’s come to tell us where his body lies… so we can give him a proper burial like he deserves…”

“So he really is gone,” Bofur chokes out, and takes his hat off to wipe it across his eyes.

“No!” Bilbo cries, and Thorin looks at him once more. “My _unconscious_ body! Which was still alive last I looked! But won’t be much longer if it gets completely snowed over!”

“What is it, Thorin?!” Gandalf demands again. “Tell me what he is saying to you!”

Thorin looks around at the group in the tent, his expression alarmed, yet also beginning to grow determined, despite how he cannot even seem to lift his head off his pillow. “We need to go to Raven Hill!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See?? :D
> 
> [Boost this chapter on tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/179579656804/as-through-a-swirling-mist-chapter-7-you-would-be)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A great big heartfelt thank you to all my readers & commenters, as always <3
> 
> Also, a very quick note: I realized I had left an unintentional loose end in the previous chapter, and so added a short sentence to rectify it. Nothing too plot important, just too many dwarves running around all at once for me to keep track of, lol.

“I’ll send word to the search parties,” Balin sighs, taking a step away from Thorin’s cot and towards the door. “Night is coming on, but in the morning they’ll be able to bring Master Baggins back to us—”

“No!” both Bilbo and Thorin cry at the same time, and the others all freeze, staring at Thorin.

“He is unconscious,” Thorin goes on, sounding breathless and weak, “not dead.”

Murmurs of alarm go around the tent, and then Gandalf asks, “Are you certain, Thorin?” Thorin nods, glancing at Bilbo again, and Bilbo nods in return. He’s almost afraid to admit it, but at last a tiny bud of hope has begun to unfurl in his chest. His friends know he is here, they know he needs help, and they are coming for him… “Then time is of the essence,” Gandalf concludes, looking to Balin. “Tell your search parties to go now.”

“Everyone able and not occupied with other tasks is out on the battlefield sorting through the dead as we speak,” Balin replies, shaking his head and looking stricken. “It could take hours to organize a new search.”

And just like that, the hope shrivels and wilts once more.

“Then we’ll just have to go ourselves,” Nori says. He shrugs when the others all turn to look at him, then, responding to something Bifur signs to him, too fast for Bilbo to make out for all that he had learned a little of the dwarven hand-language over the past months, Nori goes on, “I just gave my report to Dáin a short time ago, so he’s not expecting to see me again for a while yet. I figure the rest of you were between jobs, if you’re here.”

“Aye,” Bofur nods. “And if Bilbo needs us, everything else can wait!”

The hope bursts into full bloom in Bilbo’s heart, hope and gratitude and a desire to cry all over again, seeing how eager his friends are to come to his aid. Thorin is smiling softly when Bilbo meets his gaze once more. “You said your body lies on Raven Hill?” he asks, and Bilbo nods. “Where precisely?”

“Er—” Bilbo falters. “I’m… not exactly sure… I think I could find the spot again, at least, if I were to retrace my steps. But… But I don’t know how to describe it without leading you there,” he admits, deflating.

Thorin purses his lips, holding Bilbo’s gaze for a long, silent moment, until Gandalf prompts impatiently, “Well? What has he told you?”

Thorin casts the wizard an annoyed glance before looking around at the other dwarves. “He will have to lead us to the spot,” he says, “which means I must go with you.”

There’s a beat of shocked silence, and then several people start yelling at once. “You’ll do nothing of the sort!” Óin declares, while Bilbo exclaims, “No! Thorin, your wounds!”

“I think that is perhaps too hasty, Thorin,” Gandalf says, his voice grave, and then he casts what some might almost think to call a distrustful glance in Bilbo’s general direction – but Bilbo knows the wizard too well to think that!

Thorin shakes his head, gritting his teeth. “You are welcome to stay here if you do not like our plan, Tharkûn,” he growls, and then looks around the tent, “as is anyone else whose fears outweigh their loyalty. But I am going up to Raven Hill to find Bilbo before he can come to any further harm, with or without your aid.” And with that, Thorin begins to push himself up on his cot – or he attempts to, anyway, but his strength fails him again. He barely manages to raise himself up an inch or two before a grimace of pain overtakes his face and he collapses back onto his pillow, sweating and panting.

“Thorin—!” Bilbo cries again, taking a step toward the cot, before remembering himself and hastily backing away once more, his hands clasped in front of him to keep from reaching out to the dwarf.

“Don’t strain yourself, lad!” Óin growls, one hand going behind the king’s head while the other lifts the blankets and furs off of his midsection to peer in at his many bandages. “You’ll tear your stitches at this rate, and those and a little elf magic are all that’s holding your guts in place.”

“Really, Thorin!” Balin says. “I see no reason for this! Surely we can find another way to help Bilbo?”

“I don’t see how,” Nori drawls, folding his arms where he hangs back in the shadows on the far side of the tent, “considering none of _us_ can see Bilbo, much less follow his directions anywhere. And it’s getting colder out there every moment we stand here gabbing about it.”

Bilbo stares at the starry-haired dwarf, a sinking feeling in his belly. Nori is right, of course, but… such a journey could kill Thorin, especially after the harm Bilbo’s touch already caused him. Is he really willing to risk Thorin’s life on the chance that it’ll help them find Bilbo’s body sooner? Perhaps he could simply try to describe the route he’d taken so that the others can search for him without Thorin’s aid…

After a moment, Gandalf speaks again. “I suppose what Thorin proposes is the best course of action,” he says slowly, eyeing Bilbo’s corner again, “seeing as it is the only option before us. And with the proper precautions, we should be able to transport Thorin up the hillside without too much trouble.”

Óin looks mutinous on the other side of the cot, but Thorin lays a hand on the healer’s forearm, drawing his gaze back down to the king. “There is no time to waste, my friend,” Thorin says. “Tell us what to do.”

And so barely a quarter of an hour later finds them loading the wounded King Under the Mountain onto the back of a common supply wagon, padded out with all the pillows and furs they could scavenge up and then covered over with more blankets that will hide Thorin from view while they make their way out of the camp. Dwalin had sent the two guards off to go find some supper for themselves, saying he would stand watch over the King’s tent in the meantime, and then they had backed the cart right up to the tent’s door so that they could help Thorin onto it without being seen.

Bilbo keeps well away while they do so, crouched atop the frosty mud between two tents facing Thorin’s, having told his friends he would wait across the street for them rather than risk getting in their way or, worse, accidentally touching any of them. In truth, he also doesn’t want to frighten the great ram Bofur’s acquired along with the cart by coming too close. The beast rearing or running wild with Thorin lying helpless in the cart behind it would not do at all. And anyway, the dwarves all know the way to Raven Hill from here, so they won’t need him to guide them until it comes down to the details of where he’s left his body.

He gives an odd, involuntary shiver as he squats there with his arms wrapped around himself. He can’t really feel the cold, not the cold of the ground or in the air or from the snowflakes slowly drifting down over them, but he can feel it in his hand and arm, where the ring used to sit. It’s like his flesh is being slowly turned to ice, black, inky ice, or like the worst sort of frostbite is creeping over him inch by inch, the sort he hasn’t seen in years and years, since the spring when they uncovered several hobbits who’d been buried alive out in the snow drifts during the Fell Winter… But they had been stiff and solid, whereas Bilbo can at least still move his arm, and his hand, though it feels a little disconnected from the rest of him and is all but completely black now.

Pushing his sleeve up reveals that, indeed, the black smudge has spread beyond his elbow in the time he stood there talking with Thorin. It is nearing his shoulder, he thinks, going by the feel of the icy stiffness in the limb.

He wonders again, for just a moment, what might happen should this darkness completely overtake him – but his friends are on the move now, coming to rescue him, and so this black mark, whatever it is, won’t have much time to spread any further. Across the wide, muddy roadway, Dwalin looks around one more time for any witnesses before giving the signal, and finally the cart begins to pull away from the tent front, Bofur and Balin on its front seat and what appears to be little more than a load of furs and blankets in the back, while the other three dwarves walk along behind it, as casual as you please. It is only Gandalf who lingers a moment longer, his eyes hard as he looks over in Bilbo’s direction. The wizard had said he can sense Bilbo’s presence even if he cannot see the hobbit, and he seems almost to glare now that no one else is watching him, one hand clenching tight around his staff while his other rests on the pommel of the old elven sword on his belt.

Bilbo watches him for a long moment and can’t help marveling at the idea that Gandalf, of all people, on whom Bilbo had placed all his hope initially, seems the most ready to distrust him. But the wizard turns away a second later, following after the dwarves and their cart, and Bilbo climbs to his feet as well, putting all such thoughts from his mind in favor of trying to keep pace with the ram’s easy trot.

He’ll be back in his body where he belongs soon enough, and then none of this will matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost there! :D
> 
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	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone. This was supposed to a be a very quick little Halloween fic, but as some of you may have seen on my tumblr, I recently had some not so good things come up in real life that wiped me out emotionally. I'm finally feeling up to writing again, though, & so am back to working on this one & THaTH.
> 
> This fic was originally going to be a nice round 10 chapters, but then I looked at the word count on this one vs. where I was in the outline, and thought… yeah, better go ahead and post what I have now. So it's going to be one chapter longer than planned now, but we're really almost there, I promise!

They pick up the pace a little once they leave the camp behind, Balin giving some quick explanation to the guards patrolling the perimeter about how they’re going out to join the groups sorting through the dead on the battlefield. No one seems to question the sight of members of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield sticking together rather than joining with dwarves from the Iron Hills, nor does anyone try to stop them – they are treated with a deference that Bilbo supposes must be expected for the Heroes of Erebor. As the cluster of tents and torches falls away behind them, the blankets on the back of the cart begin to rustle, and finally Óin emerges from beneath them, pushing their coverings aside just enough to allow him and Thorin to breathe more easily from their hiding place. The mortally wounded King Under the Mountain might not have been so easily allowed out into the desolate battlefield, with only a few of his followers for protection, after all.

It is tempting to move closer to the cart now, though Bilbo knows it’s unnecessary: the dwarves know the way to Raven Hill without his help, and the war goat trots along confidently enough, as yet unbothered by any of the death surrounding them. That would not be the case were Bilbo to come too close, of course, but still, some part of him wants nothing more than to sneak up and peer into the back of the cart, to climb over the low wall surrounding the furs and blankets there and make sure that Thorin really is still there, still breathing and alive and—

The ram gives a loud bleat, and Bilbo blinks, coming back to himself – and finds himself jogging right alongside the cart, where a moment ago he had been off at the tail end of their little party. He jerks himself away, his course veering out from the group again, and looks around: the shadows have changed, grown longer, and Raven Hill closer, all somehow without him noticing… Almost like he’d skipped over the last few minutes, or missed them entirely… None of the dwarves have noticed, of course, as he’s as invisible to them as ever and Thorin is still ensconced behind the protective walls of the cart, out of Bilbo’s field of vision. Another glance around, however, reveals Gandalf, his gaze still not quite able to focus on Bilbo, yet the wizard’s scowl is directed in his general direction: suspicious and warning just as he had been back in the camp, aware of Bilbo’s movements even if only through his ability to sense the ‘dark presence’ of Bilbo’s spirit form.

A chill runs through Bilbo as he looks back at Gandalf, and he turns to jog further out from the group, taking care to keep well away from any of his friends. What would have happened had he continued on in that unconscious state, if he had not realized what he was doing, drifting ever nearer to the cart – to Thorin? Was it really only a desire to _see_ his dear friend that had drawn him nigh? Or was – _is_ – some part of him yearning for something else? Perhaps for a repeat of that moment in the tent, when Thorin’s hand had touched his…

He doesn’t at all like these questions, and likes even less the answers that present themselves before him, and he endeavors once more to stay as far away from all of his beloved dwarves as he possibly can.

Before long, though, Raven Hill materializes out of the mist and shadows ahead, and they begin trundling upward. The cart and its occupants go first, then the dwarves on foot, then Gandalf, and finally Bilbo brings up the rear. It is easiest, really, to let them all go ahead, since he can see them but not the other way around, and thus ensure they can avoid a collision. He also can’t help hoping, on some level, that a wizard and a small squad of dwarves between him and Thorin will be enough to prevent the worst should he lose track of himself again…

They climb the first few levels of zigzagging ramps easily enough, but then Bofur pulls the ram to a stop, and Bilbo finally sees the problem: the hill grows ever steeper before them, its paths ever narrower, and from here on there are only stairs left to climb. But without the cart to carry Thorin, and without Thorin to hear what Bilbo says, how will they ever find his body?

“Right, give me a minute here,” Óin says, pulling Thorin’s furs further back. Bilbo allows himself to creep just a little closer, craning his neck to watch as the healer inspects Thorin’s bandages once more. Surely they cannot mean for Thorin to walk on his own, wounded as he is?!

Thorin slowly blinks his eyes open, apparently having dozed off while they rode. “Get on with it, Óin. We’ve no time to waste,” he rasps, shivering a little as his bare arms and shoulders are exposed to the wintery air.

“Fine, fine. You’ve not split in half again on the way up here, at least,” Óin growls in reply, and then lifts a hand to beckon the others closer while he tucks the furs back up around the king. Thankfully, no one sees how Bilbo blanches at that ‘ _again_.’

Dwalin and Bifur step up to the end of the cart and – giving Bilbo quite a fright – they begin to drag Thorin down off the cartbed! A moment later, though, he sees what they’re about: they’ve each grasped the handles at either end of a stretcher on which Thorin lies, Dwalin at his feet and Bifur at his head, and, carrying him between them, they make for the staircase on the path ahead.

He should really know by now not to doubt his dwarves, either their determination or their ingenious designs.

“Bilbo…” Thorin calls, looking around, and Bilbo hastens to join them, skirting a wide berth around the ram, who still bleats angrily and prances sideways a step or two when he passes.

“I’m here, Thorin,” he says, coming to stand in Thorin’s eyeline but again making sure to keep out of his reach. They can’t risk a repeat of what had happened down in camp, after all – or what had very nearly happened on the journey up here, for that matter. He’ll give them directions, but he can’t risk coming too close, not until he’s safely back in his body where he won’t hurt his friends anymore. “Up these stairs, and then… Well, then I suppose I’ll have to have a look around and get my bearings to make sure.”

Thorin nods, laying his head back once more and telling Bifur and Dwalin, “Up the stairs. He’ll give us further directions from there.” The others nod and murmur their assent, though, near the back of their party, Gandalf’s scowl only deepens.

“Guess I’d better stay behind, then,” Bofur says, a sad sort of smile on his face as he climbs down from the cart’s front seat. “Someone’s gotta stay with this one,” he adds, coming up alongside the ram to rub a soothing hand down its neck, “and make sure it don’t wander off and leave us without a way to get back.”

“Agreed,” Thorin says, nodding his head to Bofur in a manner that really has no business looking quite so regal from his supine position – and yet. That is one of the mysteries of Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo supposes: the ability to look noble and kingly even when weak and laid out from his wounds, or covered in spiderwebs, or tumbling out of a barrel like a drowned rat…

Bofur takes his hat off then, wringing it before him a little as his eyes scan around the general vicinity where Thorin had previously seemed to address Bilbo. “You get back to your body right quick and put yourself back together, Bilbo, you hear me? Then we’ll all have a nice drink and a laugh back in camp about this latest scrape you’ve got into, when the quest and the battle and all are supposed to be done with. Good… Good luck,” he finishes quietly, looking down once more with tears standing in his eyes, as if he’s begun to doubt that there’s actually a hobbit there to hear his words at all.

“Oh, Bofur,” Bilbo murmurs, taking a step towards his friend, before remembering and catching himself: he cannot go and comfort him now, no matter how he might wish it. If he did not simply pass right through the usually easy-going dwarf, Bilbo’s touch might actually harm him, as it had Thorin.

Thorin, he realizes, is watching him, and Bilbo takes a deep breath, attempting to steady himself before saying, “Tell him… Tell him thank you, I suppose,” he murmurs. Then, smiling a little shakily himself, “And that I’m going to hold him to that offer of a drink!”

Thorin smiles softly and does as Bilbo asked, and Bofur gives a watery laugh in return before turning away to tend to the war ram.

And so they set out again. Bilbo scampers up the stairs and directs them to the next turn, and the next, and the next, their little party climbing ever higher. They move so slowly, though, and the cold is climbing up past his shoulder now, clawing at his collarbone, fogging his mind… He’d made much better time on his own, he can’t help thinking, when the dwarves stop to take a short rest, Dwalin and Bifur flicking a set of legs out from the handlebars of Thorin’s stretcher before lowering him to the ground, turning it into a cot that can stand on its own, rather than setting their king down to lie in the snow.

Bilbo turns away, forces himself to walk away, away from the sight of the wounded, weakened dwarf, his life force like a warm glow that calls to Bilbo, soft and fluttering and ripe for the picking, already so near to death as it is, and all it would take is a single touch, just a brush of his fingers – or perhaps a kiss, a voice in the back of his mind whispers, something gentle, tender, something he can almost picture, cupping Thorin’s face between his hands, pressing their foreheads together as dwarves do, leaning in… and then they would be together… forever…

“What troubles you so?” Balin’s voice asks, and Bilbo looks up with a gasp. The sky is yet darker than last he remembered, and he has once again drifted without realizing it across the small stone courtyard where they had broken their journey. This time, at least, his feet have taken him further from Thorin, and he finds himself near to where Gandalf and Balin hang back from the rest of the group, talking quietly between them, as if they do not wish the others to hear. They cannot know, of course, that Bilbo is well within earshot.

Gandalf sighs. “I cannot say precisely, but… There is great evil here, lingering about the presence that claims to be Bilbo Baggins.”

Balin shoots the wizard an alarmed look, but still his tone remains calm and flat, drawing no attention from the other dwarves. “What else could it be,” he asks, dropping to a mere whisper now, “if not our hobbit?”

“It could be many things, but I do not know what it _is_ ,” Gandalf replies, shaking his head. “Only that something is eager to hide itself from me, obscuring its true identity, which leads me to believe…”

“That Master Baggins is being used as a mask,” Balin finishes for him, looking ahead at their party again. “Who better to make us all trust so easily, after all, than the one who has saved us from certain doom so many times already?”

“Indeed,” Gandalf intones, and his gaze is sharp as he scans the area around Bilbo.

“Do you think—” Balin starts, then cuts himself off as Dwalin and Bifur climb to their feet across the courtyard, taking up Thorin’s stretcher once more. “Could this be some orc trickery?” the old dwarf goes on then, dropping his voice. “Vengeance for slaying Azog? And we’ve just brought Thorin directly to them…”

Gandalf shakes his head again, taking up his staff as they begin to walk once more. “I have never known orcs to use such magic. It is more likely some very enterprising wight, hoping to draw us into its barrow…”

“I’m not a wight!” Bilbo protests automatically, though neither Balin nor Gandalf can hear him. As it is, Thorin looks around from where he lies between Dwalin and Bifur, frowning at the outburst, and calls him name.

He’s _not_ a wight, Bilbo thinks furiously as he goes trotting back to Thorin’s side. He’s not one of those nasty things that live in the hills east of the Shire, luring unwary travelers to their deaths! He’s merely a hobbit, perhaps a hobbit who’s come up on the wrong side of a magic ring, and now finds himself wandering about as a spirit while his body lies somewhere, entombed in ice and stone…  

That… That doesn’t make one a barrow wight… Does it?

He falters, something tickling at the back of his memory, something he’d read once in a very old history book. Something to do with old Arnor, perhaps? With the king who’d bequeathed his ancestors the lands of the Shire, or something around that subject? He can’t say now what it was that had struck him as so familiar, and he shakes his head, walking on to rejoin Thorin at the head of the party and direct them up the path from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to everyone who has read, left kudos, commented – both here or on tumblr – and just generally stuck around through the long wait. Your encouragement & support really does mean the world to me ❤️
> 
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	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Check out this GORGEOUS coverart made by mithrilacorns on tumblr ♥](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/180779328419/mithrilacorns-he-knows-without-looking-that-the)
> 
>  
> 
> [Boost this chapter on tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/180575524794/as-through-a-swirling-mist-chapter-10-if-master)

They’re nearly there, Bilbo tells him yet again, slogging up another set of stairs and then stumbling out of the way of the dwarves who come up behind him. Nearly, _nearly…_ The terrain is beginning to look a little familiar, some of the cliffs and crags above them appearing to be the ones he had tried so hard to memorize before he’d descended the hill. He thinks, anyway. Probably. In the moments when his vision doesn’t swim and go dark around the edges.

He clutches at his arm, flexing his hand as Thorin relays the next set of directions to the others. He almost can’t even feel the bone-deep chill in his arm anymore, the flesh gone numb and dead beneath its inky stain for all that he can still move it. He knows without looking that the blackness has begun to creep across his chest by now, that it will soon climb up the side of his neck as well, visible above the collar of his jacket.

Not that anyone will be able to see it in any case…

“Bilbo?”

He blinks slowly, his head feeling heavy and full of fog as he looks around.

“ _Bilbo—_ ”

The voice seems to come from very far away, but it is familiar all the same, and Bilbo frowns, forcing himself to concentrate – and then there, in front of him, looking up from his stretcher, is Thorin.

 _Right_ in front of him. Far closer than Bilbo had been a moment ago. Closer than he’s let himself come all the way up here, practically looming over the injured dwarf.

“Where do we go next?” Thorin asks, his voice calm, business-like, though in his eyes is something bordering on concern.

“Oh…” Bilbo looks around, wrapping his arms about himself and tucking his blackened hand out of sight, before he spies the staircase he remembers running down earlier that evening. “There. Up those stairs over there,” he says, directing Thorin’s gaze with a nod of his head, and then he takes the lead up the stairs as Thorin translates to Bifur and Dwalin. The party comes up the stairs after him, slower than Bilbo can move on his own, encumbered as they are.

And not for the first time, a voice whispers in his mind that he doesn’t need them, that they’re only slowing him down, that he ought to simply run on and leave these slow, useless dwarves behind… At the same time, another voice – or perhaps not another one, but the same, singular voice, simply trying a different tack – urges him to take Thorin by the hand first, to pull his most beloved dwarf to his feet so that they might run away together, to take what he wants most and never let go.

Bilbo clenches his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut and forcing himself to focus only on  _this_ moment, on the stone steps passing beneath his feet and how very, very close they are to—

Here. Right here! He comes to a stop at the top of the stairs, for a moment unable to do more than stare. The alcove where his body lies is directly across from him, and even now Bilbo can see the slight outline of his own furry feet poking out through the snow. A second later, though, Bifur’s snorting breaths sound behind him as the dwarves come up the stairs, and he remembers to scuttle out of their way just in time.

“Here, over here!” he calls to Thorin, already jogging across the broad, flat courtyard to the alcove with a beckoning wave of his hand, the black mark momentarily forgotten. Bifur and Dwalin shuffle around to allow Thorin a better view as he attempts to follow Bilbo’s voice, and finally the king’s gaze lands on him once more. “In here,” Bilbo says from where he stands by the doorway, waving them over, and Thorin directs the party to cross to him.

“I think you lot had better wait here for now,” Gandalf suddenly speaks up, and the dwarves stop in their tracks to frown up at him as he pushes to the front of the group, staff in one hand while the other, once again, rests on the pommel of his sword.

“Oh. Oh, yes, Gandalf probably is the best person for this,” Bilbo says, smiling though he feels rather shaky and uneasy for some reason as the wizard approaches. “Probably need some magical help to put me back together, after all…” He gives a small laugh that sounds nervous to his own ears, almost hysterical, and avoids Thorin’s worried glance. He’s just relieved, that’s all, almost can’t believe they’re finally here, that this nightmare will soon be over, that he’ll soon be free…

“You heal him up a bit or whatever it is you need to do, and I’ll carry him down to the cart,” Nori says, following a few paces behind the wizard, despite the warning.

Gandalf stops at the doorway to the alcove and peers inside, mere inches from where Bilbo lies, though he supposes the wizard cannot see his body any more than his spirit, drat that magic ring. Such a lot of trouble over something so small and innocuous, really, he doesn’t know what all the fuss was about, it’s just a bit of fun, just a handy little piece of magic that’s not hurting anybody—

“There is nothing here,” Gandalf says.

“What?” Thorin cries, while the others all gasp and murmur in shock. Nori runs forward, coming up alongside Gandalf to look into the alcove as well, though the wizard puts out his staff to keep the dwarf back – just in time too, as Bilbo doesn’t fancy being stepped on by great steel boots, even if he’s not actually there to feel it himself.

“I— It— I’m invisible,” Bilbo manages to force out, the words like ice and molasses, trying their damnedest to remain stuck behind his teeth.

“Is this,” Thorin begins, and Bilbo looks around at him again, meeting the king’s eyes – eyes that are definitely worried now, beginning to doubt though trying desperately not to, “some… some hobbit magic? Making yourself invisible in times of hardship?”

“Er—” Bilbo chokes, and his throat seems to have decided to join the rebellion against forming any words.

“I have never heard of such a thing,” Gandalf says, straightening once more and turning to frown back at Thorin on his cot.

Thorin glares up at the wizard for a moment before turning his gaze back to Bilbo. “You moved unseen through Thranduil’s keep,” he murmurs, sounding more than a little like he is trying to remind himself, to reassure himself, “and through the dragon’s hoard.”

“Yes,” Bilbo whimpers. The cold in his arm and chest seems to have intensified all of a sudden, the blackness under his skin squeezing around him like a vise. “And— And when I fought the spiders.”

Thorin seems to relax ever so slightly at those words, and he is smiling when Bilbo meets his gaze again. “Yes,” he agrees, his voice soft. “You saved us all so many times – and now you must tell us how to save you. How can we undo this invisibility magic?”

“There is nothing to undo,” Gandalf harrumphs loudly before Bilbo can answer – not that he was about to, his tongue, his throat, his lungs, even his mind seeming to cloud over, strangling him and cutting off his speech.

“What are you talking about?” Nori demands, still standing by the opening into the alcove.

“If Master Baggins says his body lies here—” Thorin starts.

“ _That_ ,” Gandalf proclaims, his form growing larger and his voice deepening as he jabs his gnarled old staff in Bilbo’s general direction, “is not our Master Baggins!”

“What?” Dwalin demands, standing at the end of Thorin’s cot, while Bifur signs something equally outraged at the wizard.

“You cannot see him, you do not know—” Thorin snarls up at the wizard.

“Please… Please, we’re so close,” Bilbo whispers, sinking back against the stone wall at his back, though no one seems to hear him, not even Thorin, with the way they all argue and shout over each other.

“I fear what the wizard says is true!” Balin’s voice finally breaks through the cacophony, and he comes up alongside Thorin, laying a hand on his shoulder, and the other dwarves fall silent. “Whatever this being is, it nearly killed you with a single touch, Thorin,” he says, but Thorin grits his teeth, turning his face away. “And now it has so very conveniently led us away from the protection of our kin, out into a secluded spot, where none but those here now would ever know to look for us.”

“For what purpose?” Thorin growls, though he doesn’t look back at Balin. His gaze instead finds Bilbo’s once more, those deep blue eyes turning sorrowful and longing.

“For exactly the purpose it attempted to carry out in camp,” Gandalf replies impatiently. “My best guess is that this is something like a barrow wight, or perhaps a dwarfish variation of such – a lost soul trapped here since Smaug attacked Dale and the Mountain, waiting over a century for any foolish mortal to stray too close.”

“And we brought five armies’ worth of dead and dying right to its doorstep,” Balin sighs, shaking his head.

Thorin is still holding Bilbo’s gaze. “There must be some other explanation,” he rasps, low and pleading.

Bilbo opens his mouth to speak, to explain, to tell him all about the magic ring, but the words sit just at the back of his mouth, perched atop his throat but stuck fast, immovable.

Gandalf sighs loudly. “We might all _wish_ such a thing to be true, but…”

“Bilbo?” Thorin whispers, ignoring the wizard. His voice hitches around the name, and Bilbo feels an answering sob clawing its way up from his lungs. From the corner of his eye, he sees Gandalf turn away in disgust, stalking back over toward the alcove where Bilbo’s body lies and beginning to mutter some incantation or other under his breath as his staff begins to glow.

“It’s— It’s a— a— I _can’t—_ ” Bilbo shudders, shakes his head, wrapping his arms around his midsection once more, though he doesn’t care anymore if anyone sees the blackness covering his hand and arm.

“Something— Something is preventing him from speaking!” Thorin cries, and, in his apparent desperation, he actually seems to push himself up an inch or so from his cot. “Bilbo, please, you must tell me—”

He cannot breathe, cannot speak, cannot even think, the dark magic of the ring crushing in on him, sounding like a great war drum in his ears, or the beating of terrible, massive wings, a beast more fearsome and evil than even Smaug himself, a being of flame and shadow bearing down on him, bending him to its will—

He reaches one hand out, extends a single finger, his entire form trembling as he fights to remain upright, to remain himself, and, carefully and delicately at he can – hoping against hope that this will not be like last time, that perhaps it must be skin to skin – he taps his fingertip against the fat, flat gem that sits in one of the rings on Thorin’s hand.

And then he skitters backward, all of his willpower required to keep from brushing his hand against Thorin’s and re-establishing that connection, that flow of life and warmth, of power… He sinks down against the wall once more, panting and exhausted, but, at least, now that he is no longer trying to speak of the ring, the great force preventing him from doing so seems to have eased.

Thorin stares down at the ring on his own hand, then looks to Bilbo once more, confusion writ large across his expression. Then, finally, doubtfully, as if he thinks he cannot possibly have understood correctly, he asks, “A ring?”

Gandalf stills, his back still turned towards them. “What did you say?”

“A… A magic ring?” Thorin asks again. “That is what has hidden you from view?”

Bilbo nods his head frantically, unable to do or say more, and then watches as a strange, uneasy sort of look comes over Gandalf’s face just before his ducks into the alcove once more, leaning down over Bilbo’s invisible form – and then, a moment later, the thing made of flames is back, just a brief flash before Bilbo’s eyes, a snarling warning, and then Gandalf comes stumbling back out.

“I… I cannot!” the wizard gasps, shaking his head, and turns abruptly away from where Bilbo’s body lies, as though desperately turning his back on some great temptation. “One… One of you,” he says, waving the dwarves towards the alcove, and shakes his head again as if attempting to clear it of some fog.

“You’d send us in to do what a wizard quails to?” Dwalin demands.

“You dwarves were built to resist precisely this sort of magic!” Gandalf snaps, still moving further away from Bilbo and his magic ring. “Other than a hobbit, I cannot think of anyone more suited to the task!”

“I’m on it,” Nori says, already the closest, and he creeps into the alcove. Bilbo staggers to his feet once more and makes his way over to the doorway as well, knowing he will need to tell them where to look and where to step – or not. Thankfully, Nori is already feeling carefully with the tips of his boots before putting his weight down anywhere, his thieving past making him more delicate and cautious than some of the others might have been. Finally, he finds the sole of one of Bilbo’s feet, and he leans down, running his fingers through the thin layer of snow that’s collected there and then simply closing his eyes, letting his hands do the searching where his eyes would deceive him. “I’ve got hairy hobbit feet over here!” he calls at last, grinning and triumphant. Almost as one, the dwarves let forth a loud cheer, and then Bifur, Dwalin, Óin, and Balin are all rushing forward, all chattering about getting him bundled up and carried down the hill, and to the healers—

“Stop!” Thorin bellows, and they all freeze. “You will trample him like this!” Everyone turns to look at their king, including Bilbo, who has all but plastered himself to the wall, afraid that he might injure one of his friends as they suddenly crowd around him. “We must get the ring off of him,” Thorin goes on, and Bilbo blinks, a ringing starting up in his ears as the world seems to tip slowly sideways, “so that we can see what we’re doing, and, hopefully, put Master Baggins’ spirit back in his body.”

“Yes,” Bilbo rasps when the dwarf king glances at him again. “That’s the idea…”

“Can’t exactly see what I’m doing here,” Nori says, looking down at what must appear to him to be blank, empty snow. “Think you could give us some directions, Bilbo?” he asks.

Thorin looks to him once more, and Bilbo squeezes his eyes shut, forces himself to nod. “Right,” he says – and then waits for Thorin to relay that, but he doesn’t. He opens his eyes, glaring. “Up, and right!”

Thorin blinks, understanding dawning. “Oh… Right? Right hand?”

“My right or his right?” Nori asks.

Thorin looks at him, but Bilbo can only scrub his fingers into his temples, his mind clouding over once more as that awful drumming of wings sounds in his ears again, like a great heartbeat, independent of his own, and all he can think is that they are going to take it, it’s his but they want to take it, thieves, the lot of them, they can’t, they can’t have it, it’s  _his_ , his precious—

“I’ll do it,” he hears a voice grumble, and then there is a grunt of pain, the shifting of furs and blankets, some quiet protests but then several limping steps crunch through the snow – and then Thorin sinks to the ground next to Bilbo, pale and sweating but alive as yet. “Tell me what to do,” he says, and Bilbo can only stare at him.

“My… My right,” he murmurs, still staring at this dwarf, watching the big hands begin to reach and fumble, finding the hobbit’s arm, following it down to his hand, his palm, his fingers, finally closing over—

He leaps forward, and then someone is screaming, shrieking, snarling, fingers sinking into warm, living flesh like claws, drinking in the hot, pulsing life-force, strengthening him, strengthening his master—

The ring tugs free of the hobbit’s finger, and then everything goes dark.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omfg. I cannot believe I'm finally posting this thing & marking this story complete. Real life has been anything but fun the last few months, and I really thought I might never actually finish this thing. Thank you so much to everyone who hung on 'til the end here, and of course to everyone who's read, commented, and left kudos along the way. ♥
> 
> [In case you missed it, Mithrilacorns over on tumblr made this absolutely beautiful cover art for this fic.](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/180779328419/mithrilacorns-he-knows-without-looking-that-the)
> 
> [You can also signal boost this chapter with this post on tumblr.](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/post/182752675434/as-through-swirling-mist-chapter-11-bilbo-is)
> 
> And now, without further ado, the promised happy ending & fluffy epilogue you all so richly deserve:

Bilbo wakes slowly, becoming aware of the sensations around him one by one: the weight of blankets bearing him down; the tickle of fur against his neck; the smell of coals burning and their heat wafting about him, brushing against his cheeks and forehead; puffs of air, rhythmic and slow, rustling the hair atop his head; and, finally, the warm, solid mass next to him, under him. A body, perhaps? His cheek is resting on what might be a shoulder and his arm is slung across what must be someone’s chest, rising and falling with the deep breaths of sleep… And there is something warm covering his hand, he realizes, holding it in place over the strong, steady heartbeat he can feel beneath his palm. 

He cracks his eyes open at last, even that little movement feeling as though it takes a great deal of effort to perform. His vision is blurred at first, but a few blinks later it begins to clear – yet he still can make no sense of what he sees. Something dark hovers in the upper corner of his sight, flecked here and there with silver, while before him stretches a pale expanse where his hand lies, his fingertips rubbing experimentally against rough cloth bandages, while his hand is covered by another’s, larger than his own and adorned with dark hair and rings and—

Bilbo jerks up, scrambling backward, fear and adrenaline coursing through him as everything clicks into place: _Thorin!_ Thorin is lying next to him, he is _touching_ Thorin, but he _can’t_ , he can’t be, he can’t be here, he’ll hurt him, kill him, suck the life from him—

“Wha… What is it? Bilbo—?!” Thorin startles awake at his movement, eyes flying open wide and pushing himself nearly upright to look around them. Finding no other threat, though, his gaze finally settles on Bilbo where he sits at the very edge of the cot – a wide, shared cot, he realizes, just as the piled blankets seem to be shared across the two of them, though they have fallen down to Bilbo’s lap now. He shudders, gooseflesh spreading across his skin despite the warmth in the tent – the very same tent where he had found Thorin before, where he had stood by the dwarf king’s bedside while he made his apologies and said his goodbyes, where Bilbo had nearly—

“Are you alright?” Thorin asks, his soft voice breaking through Bilbo’s swirling thoughts and bringing him back to the present.

Bilbo can only stare at him, wrapping his arms around himself against the chill pulsing through him and the shudders it elicits. “I…” he says at last, and frowns, looking around again. “I don’t know.”

Thorin’s gaze is soft, and sad, and he leans slowly towards Bilbo. “You must cover up,” he says quietly, reaching for the furs and blankets pooled around his waist. “You were nearly frozen when we found you.” As Thorin’s hands come near, though, Bilbo gives an involuntary flinch, cringing away, and the dwarf stops, his eyes somewhat unfocused as he looks somewhere to the left of Bilbo.

“Forgive me,” he says stiffly, drawing back once more and sinking down onto one elbow. “I did not… I do not mean to take liberties. Óin merely thought that sharing body heat would best sustain you as you healed. But now that you are awake—”

“I _hurt_ you,” Bilbo hiccups out, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes, as he had wished for so many times before in his spirit form, yet finding no relief in them now. Thorin finally looks him in the face again, his dark brows drawing together. “The last time I touched you, I—” He nearly chokes on the breath in his throat, recalling the dark presence that had seemed to overtake him up on Raven Hill, first merely stopping his tongue but then driving him to turn in his friends, to attack— “I nearly killed you, Thorin!”

“But you did not,” Thorin says firmly, and leans forward to close a large hand over Bilbo’s forearm, before sliding it down to curl his fingers around Bilbo’s palm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “And you can see that your touch has no ill effects on me now,” he continues, then adds very quietly, looking down at their joined hands, “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

Bilbo sits frozen for a long moment, staring first at Thorin and then down at their hands. It almost doesn’t feel real, that they’re both actually here, alive and— well, relatively whole, anyway. When he’d stood in this tent before, he’d fully believed it might be the last time he ever got to see Thorin’s face, or hear his voice, or see him smiling at Bilbo and whispering his name… He’s come to cherish these moments along their journey, when Thorin reaches out to him with such quiet, unassuming affection, as he’s done so often since they’d stood on the Carrock together. But he’d also told himself – tried to convince himself – that it meant only friendship, that he _felt_ only friendship for this rough, noble, selfless dwarf. He hadn’t dared ever let himself hope—

He hadn’t dared hope he would survive standing up to a great Gundabad orc. Or to the poisonous giant spiders of Mirkwood. Or that he would ever find a way out of Thranduil’s dungeons. Or that he could ever possibly riddle with a dragon or find a single gem amongst thousands or fight in a war or, or, or…

And after all that, sitting in a quiet tent and staring down at Thorin’s hand engulfing his smaller one, _now_ is when he’s going to allow his courage to fail him?

“Yes, well,” he says, sniffling a little and blinking back his tears as he looks up into Thorin’s face once more with a wobbly-feeling smile, “I suppose that makes two of us.” He lays his free hand over Thorin’s and gives his fingers a squeeze for emphasis.

Something seems to ease in Thorin’s expression as he returns Bilbo’s smile, some tension now replaced by relief, and gladness, and hope. “Bilbo,” he murmurs, pushing himself more upright again and leaning closer still.

“Yes,” Bilbo answers, tipping forward himself. He is prepared for the press of Thorin’s forehead against his, has seen his dwarves exchange the gesture both as a greeting and in tender moments of relief after some of their more harrowing misadventures, had even been the recipient of such on a few occasions himself. He lets his eyes slide closed, lets himself enjoy the nigh overwhelming feeling of closeness that comes in these moments, of feeling another living being so near to him, hearts and breaths beating together, blocking out all the rest of the world and simply _being_ for a few precious seconds, being right here, with the one person he loves more than any other in all the world…

“My dearest friend, my… amrâlimê… I thought I had lost you,” Thorin whispers, his voice hitching a little. “First by my own foolishness and pride, then in the battle…”

“Then by _my_ foolishness,” Bilbo replies, a wry smile twisting his lips as he opens his eyes to peek at Thorin.

Thorin frowns, pressing his forehead to Bilbo’s temple, the bridge of his nose fitting securely against Bilbo’s cheek. “You are not to blame.”

“I’m the one who chose to muck about with a magic ring I knew nothing about,” he sighs, dislodging his hands from Thorin’s to instead wrap his arms around the dwarf’s broad shoulders. Thorin’s arm finds its way around Bilbo’s waist a moment later, the two of them leaning heavily against each other. Bilbo swallows dryly, licking his lips before going on, “And the one who stole your family’s most treasured heirloom and handed it over to your enemies…”

Thorin suddenly draws away from him, and Bilbo feels his heart sink, his courage of moments ago all for naught – but the dwarf only pulls back far enough to look into Bilbo’s eyes once more as one of his large hands comes up to cup Bilbo’s cheek. “I meant what I said before,” he rumbles. “You did only what a true friend would: you tried to prevent a war, to save the lives of myself, my kin, and my company, when my pride and bloodlust were beyond all reason.”

“Well, reason or no,” Bilbo replies, sniffling some more as his eyes prick with tears again, “I’m still sorry to have caused you any pain.”

Thorin huffs, letting his own suspiciously shining eyes fall closed as his forehead taps against Bilbo’s once more. “You truly are a kindly soul, Master Hobbit… I fear I could never deserve you.” Bilbo stares at him, nearly cross-eyed as they’re still pressed so close together, unsure if he’s heard that correctly. Thorin’s eyes remain stubbornly closed, though, and he goes on doggedly, “I was not fully myself when I gifted you that shirt of silversteel, but the sentiment behind it is true, and, if you would have me, all that is mine would be yours as well, all that I have to give, all that I am—”

“ _Thorin_ ,” Bilbo whispers, and he can’t help the smile spreading across his face when Thorin finally meets his gaze again. He pulls back an inch or two, taking in Bilbo’s expression, and finally a small, hesitant smile begins to grow on his lips in answer.

Bilbo’s not sure which of them leans in first, tilts their head, changes things, but suddenly it is not Thorin’s forehead pressing against his that he feels, but his lips against Bilbo’s, tentative at first and so very gentle. Bristly, too, where Bilbo can feel his beard and mustache, and that finally has a laugh bubbling up his throat as he frames Thorin’s jaw with both his hands and kisses him again and again, running his fingers through the dwarf’s beard simply because he _can_.

He can feel Thorin smiling as well, his deep, answering chuckles rumbling out of his chest to settle in Bilbo’s bones. One of his hands continuously grasps at Bilbo’s shoulder, the back of his neck, petting down his back and his upper arm – and then, quite suddenly, Thorin’s other arm, on which he’d been resting his weight all this time, seems to give out, and they both go tumbling back down into the furs on their cot.

Bilbo is quite happy to continue on in their new position, relishing the feel of Thorin’s body stretched out warm and solid beneath him, but the king pulls back with a grimace and a small groan.

“Apologies,” he grits out, his face contorted in pain, while his hands continue to curl around Bilbo’s upper arms, “but if you wouldn’t mind—”

“Oh— Oh, dear, of course!” Bilbo cries, scrambling off of him. He may not know the precise extent of Thorin’s wounds, but the bandages swathing his chest, both now and before their trek up Raven Hill, make guessing easy. He lowers himself onto the cot close by Thorin’s side once more and carefully pulls the blankets up around them both. “I hope I haven’t done any irreparable damage…”

Thorin opens his mouth to reply, but a snort from the other side of the tent cuts him off, and Bilbo’s gaze jerks up to find Óin standing at the far end of the room, working away at his table of herbs, just as he had been the last time Bilbo had found himself in this tent.

“How long have you been here?!” he demands, voice turning shrill as he huddles down against Thorin’s shoulder, as if that way he can hide himself – and their recent activities – from view.

Óin casts him an amused look, while Thorin only sighs. “I’m not about to leave my most precariously injured patient alone unless I have to,” the old healer says.

Bilbo blanches, looking down at Thorin again. “Is it… Is it really that bad?” he whispers, his fingers once more drifting over the bandages encircling the dwarf’s ribs, careful to keep his touch light and not apply any more undue pressure to his wounds. They had all seemed to think Thorin was on the brink of death before, and that journey up to Raven Hill can’t have helped any, not to mention his last encounter with Bilbo’s spirit form…

“I think he means you,” Thorin replies, his hand capturing Bilbo’s once more and drawing his attention back to the present moment.

“What?” Bilbo asks, looking up at him. The view when he first woke makes sense now as Thorin relaxes beside him, his arm encircling Bilbo while he turns his face into Bilbo’s hair, meaning that all Bilbo can see from his vantage point now is the king’s beard, his throat, the sweep of his collarbones, the first peek of dark hair covering his chest, before it is all overtaken by crisp, white bandages. There is nowhere else for his hand to fall but over those bandages, pressed to Thorin’s side as he is, and Thorin’s larger hand squeezes around his at his question – clutching it directly over his heart.

“Ye’ve been asleep for two days, lad,” Óin explains, crossing the tent to hover at the edge of their shared cot. “We weren’t sure when – or if – you’d wake,” he says, reaching over Thorin to grasp Bilbo’s wrist, checking his pulse, and then adds with a raised eyebrow, “though you seem lively enough now.”

Bilbo feels himself color slightly, and he hides his face against Thorin’s shoulder as a soft chuckle rumbles deep in the dwarf’s chest. “But so… you…” he asks after a moment, looking up at Thorin again, “you’re going to be alright?”

“Aye,” Óin answers for him, and lifts the blankets briefly to peer down at Thorin’s bandages, which still appear pristine and white, despite Bilbo’s having lain on his wounds only a few minutes ago. “He made quite a miraculous recovery after we found you out in the snow. Seems he just needed a reason to keep hanging on.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Thorin murmurs, his arm tightening around Bilbo as he presses a kiss to the hobbit’s forehead.

Bilbo tips his head back, leaning up to capture Thorin’s lips once more, unable to stop himself after all these months, months spent wishing and dreaming and wanting and…

Óin makes an exasperated noise in the back of his throat, and Bilbo hears him straighten up and go clumping away from the cot again. “Don’t get too eager there,” he warns, and Bilbo and Thorin finally part to glance over at him where he stands by the door of the tent, “there’re some visitors who’ll want to come see you shortly, now that you’re awake.” And with that, the healer slips out into the camp, a brief flash of daylight coming in through the tent’s flaps before he closes it securely behind him, the better to keep the warm air trapped within and prevent Bilbo catching a chill anew.

Bilbo sighs, snuggling close against Thorin’s side. To hear that Thorin is apparently out of danger is a great relief, but… Something terrible and dark is bubbling its way up from his middle as he curls his fingers against Thorin’s bandages, feeling his breath stutter and his throat convulse.

“Bilbo,” Thorin breathes, pulling him closer and pressing their foreheads together once more. “It’s alright. You needn’t see anyone if you do not wish it…”

“It’s not that.” Bilbo shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “I— I nearly lost you, too. When you could see and hear me, Thorin— I was so frightened—”

“It’s alright,” Thorin says again, pressing kisses to Bilbo’s forehead and temple and cheek.

“No, you— You don’t understand!” Bilbo pulls away so that he can look up into Thorin’s eyes. “The only other person who could see me was a man who _died_ just moments later! And then— Then I heard some dwarves talking, and everyone seemed to think you didn’t have much time left, and then when I got here you could see me too, and—” He breaks off with a short, gasping breath, the knowledge of how close they had come to disaster seeming to crush down on him, how unlikely it was that anything could be alright again, that they might ever end up here together…

“Shh.” Thorin pulls him close once more, pressing Bilbo’s face into his shoulder as he tightens his arm around the hobbit’s back and his other hand pets at his hair, fingers carding through Bilbo’s curls and brushing across the point of his ear, though Thorin doesn’t seem to notice how Bilbo shivers and clings to him at the touch. “I will not lie to you,” he says after a long, quiet moment. “My wounds were grave indeed after I fought Azog. If not for Gandalf and… and the elves,” he goes on, his lip curling a little on this last admission, “I don’t think I would have survived long. But… Worse than any wound, I had given in to despair.”

Bilbo squeezes his eyes shut, fear and nausea rolling through him just like the last time he had stood in this tent, feeling almost as if he’ll have to sweat out these terrible emotions like a fever.

“When I came back to myself in the Mountain, it was with your voice ringing in my ears,” Thorin murmurs, “telling me how I had changed. And I feared… I knew I had wronged you terribly, and I feared I would never be able to rectify the harm I had done, especially when you could not be found after the battle…” He inhales shakily, his arm tightening around Bilbo once more, and now it’s Bilbo’s turn to pull their foreheads together and run his hands through Thorin’s hair. “When I woke to find you standing at my bedside,” the dwarf continues, “I saw no portent of death as you seem to think it. Rather, it taught me to hope again—”

His words cut off as Bilbo surges up to kiss him again. To think that the one thing he had feared most, that Thorin being able to see and hear him meant that all hope was lost, was instead the thing that saved him, that saved them both – it’s almost too much to bear, and the only balm he can imagine is to feel Thorin warm and alive in his arms, to revel in the fact that they’re both really, truly here, after everything they’ve faced on this adventure, that they’re somehow both alive and together and that they _will_ be together, for as long as Thorin will have him—

Someone clears their throat above them, and Bilbo jerks back, blinking his eyes open wide and feeling his face begin to flush once more, though Thorin chases his lips for a moment longer before seeming to realize they have an audience. Peeking past Thorin as the dwarf turns his head to look as well, they find Óin standing just inside the tent flap, watching them with a sardonically raised eyebrow. “In here,” he says then, turning to address whomever stands outside, and Bilbo braces himself for the inevitable jokes and teasing when the rest of the Company find him and Thorin wrapped around each other as they are, especially if it is Fíli and Kíli who have come to see them first…

Instead of any of his dwarven friends, though, a tall, grey-clad figure steps through the door, walking stick and pointy hat in hand.

“Gandalf!” Bilbo exclaims, sitting up a little.

“It is good to see you back in one piece,” the wizard smiles down at him, moving further into the tent as another follows a pace behind him: King Thranduil of Mirkwood.

Thorin releases a quick sigh, before acknowledging them each with a regal nod, though he does not attempt to sit up as Bilbo has done. “Gandalf. Thranduil.” Then, pausing, he looks up at the Elvenking and adds in a softer, more sincere tone, “I am in your debt.”

Thranduil arches one brow, looking down his nose at the two of them. “It seemed a shame to let such a clever little creature wither away in the cold,” he sniffs, but, Bilbo notices, doesn’t deny the debt. So that explains the lack of frostbite, he thinks, curling his toes and flexing his fingers a little against Thorin's chest – all present and accounted for. “Besides,” the elf king goes on, eyeing Thorin’s arms around Bilbo, “I am curious to see what sort of neighbor a halfling will make. I do so tire of dwarves.” This last is said with a sneer as he looks over to where the tent flap has begun to rustle once more, and a moment later Bofur’s head pops into view.

“Is he awake?” the hatted dwarf asks, looking around until his gaze finds Bilbo, who smiles and gives him a little wave. “He’s awake!” Bofur cries, and then disappears outside for a brief moment, repeating his exclamation, before he and nearly all the other dwarves of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield come tumbling inside.

Behind Bofur are Balin and Dwalin, Dori and Nori, Bifur and Bombur, Glóin and of course Óin. “Oh, the lads’ll be right jealous not to be here!” Bofur laughs amidst all their well wishing and exclamations of how glad they are to see Bilbo awake, and not frozen, and actually corporeal.

“Ori hasn’t left Fíli’s side once since the battle,” Dori explains, sighing and shaking his head a little, though he’s also smiling, “and the princes are each still confined to their beds.”

“And that elf maid hasn’t left Kíli’s side once, either!” Bombur grins, drawing a laugh from his brother and various groans and sighs from several of the others, Thorin included.

“Elf maid?” Bilbo asks, looking down at the dwarf king, but Thorin only shakes his head.

“You’ll meet her soon enough,” he sighs. Then, softening, he adds, “She saved both my sister-sons’ lives. If she had not been there when they fell in battle…”

“It seems you are doubly indebted to the Woodland Realm, O King Under the Mountain,” Thranduil comments, drawing their gazes back up to him. The dwarves all fall silent, waiting for a fight to break out, no doubt.

“Funny,” Thorin drawls, “I could have sworn Lady Tauriel said she had been banished from your lands. Specifically for helping my nephew in Laketown.”

Thranduil sniffs, turning away and pacing toward the opposite end of the tent. “Be that as it may, her aid would not have been possible had she not been brought up almost as my own child. Between that and my own healing of both yourself and your beloved, I feel justified in asking for some small repayment.”

They all sit in shocked silence for a long moment, the dwarves at the sudden demand, and Bilbo at being referred to as Thorin’s _beloved_ – and at how no one else seems at all surprised by such a pronouncement. Finally, Thorin growls, “What do you want?”

Thranduil stops and turns back to face them with a small smirk. “Only to have a curiosity satisfied: Tell me, what sort of magic turns a halfling into an invisible harbinger of death, then transports him away onto a mountaintop and nearly freezes him solid?”

Thorin scowls, and Gandalf attempts to step between the two of them. “It’s really nothing so mysterious—” he starts to say, but then Bofur blurts out, “It was a magic ring, wasn’t it?”

Bilbo can see just enough of Gandalf’s profile to see how the wizard squeezes his eyes shut. Beyond him, Thranduil grins. “A magic ring, you say?” the elf purrs.

“I found it in a cave under the Misty Mountains,” Bilbo speaks up then, and ignores the sharp looks both Thorin and Gandalf shoot him. “It’s just a plain gold ring that turns you invisible when you wear it. Quite useful for sneaking past spiders and dragons and, er…”

“And elvish guards?” Thranduil finishes for him, his voice flat. Pursing his lips, Bilbo finally just nods. “And what happened to this ring, once its enchantment over you was broken?”

“Oh, er…” Bilbo looks around at Gandalf and the dwarves. “I actually don’t know. Thorin pulled it off my finger, and then…Then I woke up here.”

No one answers him for a moment, and then Nori sighs and steps forward. “Here it is,” he says, pulling a small bundle of cloth tied up with twine from one of the pouches on his belt. He tosses it onto the end of the cot, and then gives a short shudder. “Glad to be rid of the thing, honestly,” he says, returning to stand between Dori and Dwalin. “Always whispering to whoever is holding it… Dwarves and magic don’t really mix, you know.”

“We thought it best to avoid touching it,” Balin explains to Bilbo, who is eyeing the cloth bundle. Perhaps they’re on to something, wrapping it up like this – even now, he can feel its pull, the urge to tear through the thin fabric covering his ring and return it to its rightful place on his finger… “We’d have sealed it up in lead, as our people have done in the past with malevolent magical artifacts, but Gandalf thought it better to try to learn what we can about it first.”

“Indeed,” Gandalf says. “There are many magic rings in this world, none of which should be used lightly.” Beside him, Thranduil snorts derisively, earning a quick glare from the wizard, but neither responds to Bilbo’s questioning looks. “There are not many that I know of, however,” he goes on, “that can turn a person into a… well…”

“A wraith?” Bilbo asks, looking up at him, as something finally clicks in his memory. Gandalf and Thranduil both go very still, staring down at him – as does Thorin, beside Bilbo. “I was trying to remember before – it was something I read once, in an old book, something about a man, a king, I think, who had a magic ring, given to him as a gift. The king wore it so much that eventually he faded away entirely, until he became a wraith. Do… Do you think that could be what was happening to me?” he asks, not at all liking the alarmed look Gandalf and Thranduil exchange now.

“Perhaps,” Gandalf concedes at last, looking like he’s thinking very hard and choosing his words very carefully.

“Well, if that’s the case,” Glóin suddenly speaks up, “let’s be rid of it!” And, before anyone else can react, he steps forward to grab up the little linen bundle holding the ring and flings it into the nearest brazier, where it immediately catches fire amongst the coals.

“No—!” Bilbo cries, making as if to leap out of bed to save his precious little ring. It is only Thorin’s arm around his waist that stops him, and Thorin’s voice hissing his name that snaps him out of his fervor.

“You do not know what you are dealing with, Glóin son of Gróin!” Gandalf is thundering above them. “There is no telling what effect fire might have on the magic contained therein, or what you may have unleashed now! Fool of a dwarf, you may well have just—”

“ _Mithrandir!_ ” Thranduil’s voice cuts suddenly through the tent, and he is staring down into the flames when everyone looks at him, a strange, almost frightened expression on his normally haughty face. Gandalf frowns, stepping up beside the Elvenking, and Bilbo cranes his neck to see as well, watching as the last of the cloth burns away, leaving only his little gold ring, entirely unharmed – but not unchanged.

Slowly, almost making him believe he might be imagining it at first, a line of glowing elvish script spreads around the outside of the ring, pulsing and flickering along with the flames. “What is that?” Bilbo asks. He cannot quite make out the words from where he lies, and what he can see does not appear to be Sindarin…

No one speaks for a very long moment, and then Gandalf finally responds, his voice strained, as if it takes all of his willpower to remain calm, “That, Master Baggins, is…” He pauses again, licking his lips, and Thranduil turns wide eyes on him, though whether to urge Gandalf to continue or to stop his speech, Bilbo cannot tell. Gandalf shakes himself. “That is a problem for another day,” he says at last, and turns away from the brazier to instead smile tiredly down at Bilbo.

“If you say so…” Bilbo reluctantly agrees, and then not so reluctantly sinks back down onto the cot next to Thorin, a wave of exhaustion overtaking him all of a sudden. He has only just woken up from nearly freezing to death, after all, and there has been quite a bit of excitement since then, he thinks, turning on his side to press a quick, secret kiss to the side of Thorin’s throat as he snuggles close once more. He can hear Thranduil’s frantic whispering as he and Gandalf move off into a corner of the tent to confer between themselves, and after a moment some of the dwarves begin joining in as well, Balin and Óin and, going by the dancing shadows on the ceiling, even Bifur. But Bilbo’s eyes are growing heavy now with the warmth of Thorin’s arms around him and the comforting presence of their friends close by, all alive and well and at least on their way to being whole.

Thorin presses a gentle kiss to his temple and murmurs, “Sleep. You’re safe. We’ll sort this all out on the morrow.”

Bilbo hums in agreement, tucking his head under Thorin’s chin, and does just that.


End file.
